YuYuHakusho Human born demon
by Wingshad0w
Summary: There was human spirit master in america. His family died and he swore revenge. The universe had bigger plans, his adopted demon mother had goofier ones *100% re-written now*
1. Prologue

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon

The long (really long) awaited sequel to chapter 8 (Kinda)

GUESS WHAT

I WAS UNHAPPY WITH THE EIGHT CHAPTERS I WROTE LAST TIME

SO GUESS WHAT I'M GONNA DO NOW

NOT VIOLATE THE CANNON

TALK IN ALL CAPS

START IT ALL OVER AGAIN

LEAVE UP MY OLD STORY

MAYBE FINISH SOMETHING ONE DAY

TALK IN ALL CAPS

Notes: this is based on the idea for a sequel I had to the original story I put on FFnet. However it's set in a timeframe that does not violate the YYH canon. Well at least not as far as my lame memory serves.

I.E. The prologue's narrative will be set in the training with genkai after the genkai ark while the main story will take place afterwards.

Begin

Yusuke was in the middle of one of his more annoying training regimens when he heard a knock on one of the temple doors. Looking at yusuke balance precariously atop a needle while focusing his spirit energy into a point. Genkai had occasionally come back and done some practice with him as well, her excuse being, "Hey it's not like too much practice is bad for you." Right now she was just sitting watching yusuke having just done a short one of her balancing stints. At the knock she said, "Hold the position until I say otherwise." And left the room to answer the knock.

"Hey where are you going old hag!" Yusuke shouted as genkai kept on walking. "What you just want me to hold this for hours?"

"Maybe, depends on my guest." Genkai said in a simple response.

"And just who visits someone like you at random times anyways!" Yusuke shouted again as genkai rounded the corner and left his sight.

"That's what I'm about to find out." She replied as she kept on walking. When she reached the door a face that she was rather unfamiliar with greeted her, "No, I'm not going to take on any more apprentices, and no I don't want any."

"Hello there, it's been a while since I've come by last." An English voice greeted Genkai. Genkai understood English and she had a good idea of who the voice was.

"Thomas?" She asked just in case it was some wonton demon murder who had appeared at her door that looked eerily familiar.

"Greetings." He said with a gentlemen's bow.

Genkai returned the greetings with a Japanese bow. "So just why the hell are you here, you're expression is as dark as the damn shadows from your hat."

"I've been told my invitation that came with my family's death was 'declined'."

"And?" Genkai asked.

"I know what the tournament was, and who was in it. Need I remind you that my great uncle was on the same team as you!" He shouted almost accusingly.

"Aaaand?" Genkai asked again.

"Well I just wanted to ask if you knew the demon that killed my family." He asked this question quietly and grimly.

"No, I said I knew nothing when he actually died five years ago and I'll say I've learned nothing since then because it's the truth." Genkai said with a dismissive turn of her body. "However as you are the closest remaining family to a former teammate of mine and technically a spirit master I suppose I'll let you come in and stay a while. I've got a student who could use a practice fight against someone other than me."

"So I'll guess you won't train me?" Thomas quietly said as he ducked through the door.

"No, you're an eternally grim bastard with a near suicidal drive to complete something that should have been long done or simply been ignored years ago. I'm just trying to reduce those odds of death for you by a statistically miniscule amount." Genkai paused, "Also the kid I'm training needs someone else to throw him off his high horse and show him that he's not all that."

"So if you just want him off his high horse I'll assume you also want him alive then." He said matter-of-factly. "So that would imply that you _don't _want me to kill him?" Thomas said as he took off his hat and hung it up.

"No, I would rather prefer he is stuck in eternal torture for being told to challenge a spiritual master." She paused, "Of a sorts anyways."

"So no killing then?" He asked.

"No, no killing."

"Ok, just wanted to know." He mumbled as he removed his jacket, "I figure there's a way to fight that I'll kill him and there's a way to fight such that I'll not kill him, probably."

Thomas quietly followed genkai through various corridors looking about; he had been here twice before in the rather distant past and remembered some parts of the building from previous training failures. He saw an open door a felt a human's aura coming from the other side of said door. It seemed rather faint and diffuse to him, "If what I can feel on the other side of that door is your student I have to say he trains rather pitifully."

Genkai seemed to get furious. "That damn delinquent of mine better have passed out from an impact on his stake or he is going to wish that stake had killed him!" Rounding the corner she found yusuke lying on the ground. Switching back to Japanese she cried, "You damn delinquent! Why the HELL are you just lying there when you should be training!" Thomas rounded the corner, "WE have a guest who happens to be a spiritual master and you decide to slack off!"

Yusuke eyed up the new guy, he was massively tall compared to him, over two meters tall. His face showed a lack of interest on it however. He looked around at the room and seemed to find something interesting in the unoccupied spike where genkai had been. With a heave he lifted himself onto one hand and then placed two fingers onto the spike. "Hah, that guy needs two fingers to balance on that stupid spike; I can do it with one!"

Genkai hopped up and hit yusuke on the back of his head. "You think that you can actually stay on that pillar. This guy was trained to do a technique using two fingers."

"What is it some sort of sex move?" Yusuke asked as he rubbed his head.

"Are you trying to taunt this guy?" Genkai asked with a sigh. "He doesn't speak Japanese; he can't understand a word you're saying."

"He can't understand Japanese, why the hell would he be here?" Yusuke said with his best intimidating/outcast look he could muster. Thomas caught sight of this and returned a rather standard glare.

"I can speak English and I knew his former master. He wanted some information on his master's death, but I didn't give it to him since he's borderline crazy."

"So what his master dies and he goes crazy for revenge. Rather lame if you ask me." Yusuke said with an indignant tone.

"His master was a close member of his family; imagine if someone tried to hurt your mother. That and it's probably his assignment, with him being the North American spirit detective and all." Genkai said as she leveled a sympathetic look at Thomas who quietly began doing some vertical pushups.

"Wait that guys a spirit detective!" Yusuke shouted, his outburst throwing off both genkai and Thomas, the latter actually ending up leaning over until his feet touched the wall. "I thought I was the only one!"

"Well in Japan sure, but you think that _just _Japan has spirit troubles. The whole world has to deal with dangerous demons; it's just that some places have to deal with more demons than others."

"So this guy has the whole of America to deal with right?"

"The better part of it yes."

"So he's gotta be busy all the time right."

"Actually… not really." Genkai let out after a moment's hesitation. "He had one big assignment when he first became a spirit detective and since then he's had about two a year, or at least that's what koenma tells me."

"So then this guy is weak right, I mean I'll bet he's had one task about half as tough as, say, fighting Hiei or Rando. And besides as far as what I've sensed of his aura he's a total wimp. Weaker than some of those things in the forest I ran into."

"You're missing the whole spirit master stuff I said earlier." Genkai muttered as quietly as she possibly could. "Yes that would be close enough to the truth. At least for what we're concerned with. I want you two to have a duel."

"Me, fight him?" Yusuke asked, "This is gonna be easy."

Genkai chose not speak her doubts on Yusuke's optimism but rather continued. "Thomas, come on." Hearing his name Thomas hopped off of his spike and got himself upright.

"You sure he doesn't speak Japanese?" Yusuke asked as the three left the room, "He responded to what you said pretty quickly."

"He is smart, he heard his name, and he knows about this, he put two and two together. He uses his head more often than you do." Genkai added on that last insult as more of an afterthought.

"He thinks just because he's smart he can take me on huh, I'm gonna kick that wimp's ass!" His shout was rather loud for all the effect is had on the Japanese incapable target.

Genkai simply ignored her pupil as she barked out very simple instructions. Holding a small brightly colored pebble in her hand, "This drops, you duel." Genkai said to the two in languages that they would understand. She turned her hand over, let the pebble go, and stepped back slightly.

Yusuke raised his hand and let loose a shot from his spirit gun with much bluster and shouting. Tom's two hands clapped together between him and the incoming attack and the spirit gun shot split.

Yusuke stood flustered as he watched the energy rapidly dissipate until it managed to make a weak fizz in the wall. "All right you can deflect spirit techniques. Let's try hitting you with something more physical!" Yusuke made a lunge at Tom.

Tom put his pointer and middle finger on his right hand together and extended it out. He made three jabs with his fingers like this, all falling short of yusuke. However Yusuke's clothes took tears on the shoulders and on the side. Shallow but defined scratches appeared right below the cut in the clothes. They began to bleed ever so slightly. Genkai's eyes did follow the path of something in the air until it made a gentle, very small, mark on her wall.

Yusuke barely noticed the small shallow cuts as he hit Tom square in the cheek. The hit was spot on, but it didn't make a strong impact. Tom had begun a sidestep back from the hit and had only gotten a light impact from Yusuke's fist. "Let me try that last one again." Tom said as he stepped quickly back.

Again his right fingers moved into position, as well as his left. Yusuke went at Tom for another kick shouting, "Stop moving so much!"

Tom's hands flew like the fist of the North Star, again not touching Yusuke, but much closer this time. Yusuke found himself getting hit several times in the gut, each time by a small point about the height of two fingers and width between a fingertip and a fingernail. These hits didn't cut him though they simply hit him hard in the gut. They were followed up by two kicks as Tom closed the distance on Yusuke. Then Tom hit Yusuke across his face with a strong right hook. Yusuke fell down from the impact but wasn't out. As he got up genkai called out in English, "Stop."

Tom froze over Yusuke with two fingers together ready to strike down into somewhere vulnerable on his body. Yusuke looked up at the finger to notice a very faint golden glow. Then he saw Tom's look, he was ready to strike to kill. His look had an un-nerving amount of grim resolve in it. Especially since Yusuke was going to be his next victim.

Tom was frozen for three awkward seconds but then he got up and de froze himself, his face losing its tension and his fingers relaxing. He got up and stepped back from Yusuke giving Tom a look of hate. Tom didn't flinch at the sight he simply stepped all the way to Genkai. "This kid is supposed to inherit you're spirit techniques?"

"I'll wager a thousand dollars in my will that I'll die before he learns them all. If that's the case I want you to learn some of them to teach _him_." Genkai whispered. "Truth be told you and I are two of the strongest reiki masters on the planet. There may be so few people stronger than us we could count on our two hands. If this kid ever learns anything about what his true power is like I want you to give him skill along with brute strength."

"And how much brute strength do you think _he _has?" Tom asked looking at Urameshi.

"With training and nothing else?" Genkai asked, "More power than you have now easily. With my special technique, maybe even more than _you're_ full potential. I'll have to see. It'll take him at least a decade before I think he's ready to receive the spirit orb." Genkai sighed and shook her head, "Kids these days are far too powerful for their own good." As Genkai left the arena area she spoke up in English again, "You can stay the night in my place, maybe train the delinquent for an evening." Genkai switched back to Japanese, "Back to training!" She shouted at Urameshi.

Tom quietly stepped out after Urameshi and went to one of many unoccupied rooms in genkai's sprawling building. He had to wonder where they all came from before he laid his head down. As jet lag caught up with him he quietly thought about his old teacher his great uncle and his death. These thoughts, along with how to make himself stronger and how to get revenge were what he fell asleep to most of the time now.

-End-

And thus begins the adventure with the grimmest/darkiest bits. Just to let you know I have 19 chapters done already but since I'm a completionist and lazy bastard don't expect chapter two for some time. Also expect lotsa future swearing violence and implied/actual sex. To be fair I don't imagine any actual sex will happen until book 2 (which I haven't reached yet, although I'm closing in on it slowly) but hey just in case I'm horribly wrong I warned you!


	2. Chapter 2

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 2

Tom got out of his car at the end of a large dirt road and eyed up the building in front of him. He leaned on the door of his nice and tall car, and just stared at the building for a few moments. It was a large gothic-esque cathedral building. Only about four stories in height it was made of old stone blocks carved a few centuries ago. The building and its many small sprawling additions were spread out over about an acre and a half of ground space. The additions all varied in style and size in their appearance, some matched the original building for the most part while others seemed to be hastily constructed log cabins. Tom closed his eyes and focused, his spiritual perception letting him see what was going on inside. There were twenty bodies inside of the building, two more than he had expected. They were mostly in or around the central open area in the middle of the oldest building. Of the auras that tom could sense 18 were ordinary human auras. One was a demonic aura, which he had expected, and the last was a human aura that was… peculiar.

Tom opened his eyes and let his door gently close. He walked in using the nearest door attached to the main building. The door revealed a small hallway that stretched off into several small rooms. Most of these rooms were unoccupied as far as living residents went; they generally stored various artifacts that had been collected since this building had been inhabited. Tom slipped into one of the rooms and picked up three swords on the walls. One massive broadsword that he lifted with relative ease. And then he picked up a pair of small all black swords that were only little straight pieces of metal with a blade about a foot and a half in length. They had four inches for a round lump that separated the blade from the handle that was eight inches of black metal beneath a black wrapping of some sort.

Tom slipped the larger blade onto his person instantly, when he got to the two smaller blades he took his time eyeing them up. He held each one in his hands and made a few mock poses for combat. When he was done at this he closed the door to the room, taking a moment to check if anyone was in the outside hallway. With the door closed he focused a small bit of his aura into the sword, an eye opened on the sides of the round bits of the sword. Two small blades came out of the sword, the new points seemingly coming out of nowhere. Each blade did this while beginning to produce a red glow. Tom winced as the glow got bright, keeping his blades as extended as possible from his body. As the glow became painful to watch Tom's body emitted a yellow/golden aura. The red glow decreased greatly and after a few moments stopped entirely. Tom pouted as he looked as his two blades, "I guess that's the result of a few hundred souls, more than I can totally handle."

The door to the room opened up and twenty people were in the room a few moments later. They all had things bared at Tom, many of them had points. In addition a wolf was about up to Tom's waist and about to clamber over a desk behind Tom. Tom pouted as he sheathed his two shot swords and placed them on the desk behind him. "Oh, you're back." The wolf said with its mouth open and unmoving. "It's ok everybody, it's just master Thomas."

Everybody in the room relaxed, most offered greetings as they went back to their training. Five bodies remained when it was all done. The wolf shook his head and turned into a man. The man had metal claws in his hands; he put them at the back of his waist into a belt that came with his transformation clothes. The other three were all much more ordinary, as well as human. One had a gun at his side, the other was a black man of similar height to Tom and the last was a woman who had herself confidently dressed in leather.

Tom eyed up the four, after a quick scan he turned to the ones he knew. First came the wolf man. "You had to take your wolf form?" Tom asked

"Well there was a substantial demonic aura coming from this room." He said with a wave of his hands.

Tom nodded to the sheath on the desk. "Just trying that out again. It has stabilized a bit with time." Tom turned to the guy with a gun at his waist, "And was that out and pointed at _me?_" He asked.

"Mayhaps." The man with the gun said back. "You were letting out a powerful set of auras. The demonic aura was greater than yours for a time. You managed to get it under control." As the man said that he stepped back slightly.

Tom raised an eyebrow but kept a flat look on his face. "And who are these two bodies here? The black one and the busty one?"

"They are prospective students." The wolf man said with an open hand to them.

"Names?" Tom asked with a point at the taller of the two.

"Mark, I'm from New York city, just south of here." He said with a salute. Tom gave Mark's salute a respectful nod.

"Jane." The woman said, "I just wander, largely because of what I can do."

Tom chuckled, "Let me guess, you scared people everywhere you went because when you got angry vases exploded or something."

"Sort of." Jane replied, "Except all those exploding vases were done on purpose."

Tom nodded, "So Mark, why are _you _here."

Mark shrugged, "I've always been a little more than average in general. Little faster, little stronger etc. I could see ghosts and always tried to do something. But then someone who knew you came by and said I could do more if I got help from you."

Tom looked them both over for a moment. "Can you guys raise your aura's to show me your strongest strength?" They both looked at him oddly. "I guess not." Tom put his two short swords on a sheath at his right hip, his broadsword at his left. "Follow me." He said to the two.

Out in the hallway Tom walked through three rows of hallways into a large open courtyard space. The ceiling was glass but plants grew in several small dirt patches around the edge. A few were very demonic looking in origin. The central opening was quite large and filled with most of the people who had come in to chase Tom earlier; they were split between sparring and doing strange training exercises, many of them surrounded by a faint glow.

"You know how to fight?" Tom asked as he shooed a few students from a section of the open space.

"Define knowing _how _to fight?" Jane asked.

"A lunatic charges you in a dark alley, could you dispose of him?" Tom said as he made a nod to the wolfman and the human with the gun.

"Yea I can do that." Jane nodded smugly.

Mark also nodded his head adding, "I wouldn't use the word 'dispose' though."

Tom waved off Marks statements. "I am now a lunatic charging you in a dark alleyway, you have to stop me from mugging and killing you." He drew his long sword. "Do you understand?"

Jane chuckled and formed her two hands into a cup and spread out her fingers. "I'll just have to kill you."

Mark looked at Jane as she smirked. "Hold on what, do you want us to try and kill you!"

Tom nodded. "You do it or I do it."

Suddenly ten red strips flew out of Jane's fingers at Tom. Tom swung his sword to deflect six of them on his right. He also dodged left at the same time. Jane chuckled, "You dodged that attack, pretty impressive." She said with a smug smirk on her face.

Tom paused for an instant, "You should get used to being impressed then." Several more red strands launched at Tom, he vanished from his spot and appeared on the left side of the strands that struck the spot he been at a moment before. He was now fairly close to Mark. His sword was in his left hand. Tom raised his left arm up and struck out at Mark with the flat of the blade from Marks side. Mark took a very solid thump to his shoulder and went for a spin. Three more of Jane's red streams went at Tom. Tom moved his pointed and middle finger in a large semi-circle and left a gold ring behind. The red strips struck the ring and were deflected off of it. Jane's finger twitched and she winced in pain.

Tom smirked a little, "When those things get hit you get hurt."

"That never happened to me!" Jane shouted in frustration as all ten of her red strips struck at Tom.

With his sword moved into a reverse grip Tom moved his two pairs of index and pointer fingers, left and right, about to strike out at Jane's red strips. Small golden lines in the air were left behind where Tom's fingers flashed. The stripes all hit a small golden line and Jane's hand finally left their cup as she made a single shout in pain. The strips began to retreat but Tom caught one with his hands. "Such an interesting technique. You try and strike me with these strips. Good in number, bad in striking method. You hit me with only the point." Tom eyed up the end of the strip he had caught. "A little horned arrow point." He muttered as he observed that little arrow point. He pricked his finger on the end of the strip. "Not very sharp though, if you can make it deadlier on your own do that now, these things can't pierce my natural defenses." Tom took two fingers from his left hand to the grip. "Apparently only aura techniques can transmit pain down the lines. Scratching these gave you a twitch; let's see what breaking one would do." Tom's finger tip began to glow gold and shine around the room. People on the outside of the room who hadn't been paying attention began to turn their eyes to note the new light source.

And then Tom took a solid hit to his face. Mark had landed a rather strong blow to his face. His fist was clenched and he didn't look very content. The forming bruise didn't help that. "You're strong, but I can't just let you go ahead and to that to a nice lady like Miss Jane over here." Jane made a strange noise at that comment. "If you are going to continue down this path I'll have to fight you."

Tom stretched his neck as he got up. "You'll have to do better, I'll get bored and over observational if you don't. That hit wasn't too bad admittedly. I doubt you can do it again, but it's a good start." Tom switched his sword back to his right hand and got himself ready. "Well, I've been ready; you can try to hit me at any time."

Mark stepped back to Jane. "We need to work together to get rid of his sword." He whispered to Jane. "That'll reduce his reach enough for me to get at him."

Jane raised an eyebrow, "And _why_ should I care about working with you?"

"Because he'll cut your ribbons in half, and that'll hurt."

Jane sighed as she raised up her hands. "How do you want me to help?"

"I want you to strike as his arms, near the shoulders, try to make them immobile. I'll knock his sword out of his hand." Mark said as he prepared a boxing stance.

"When do you want to do this?"

"You'll go first and I'll follow about a second later."

Jane took a moment to massage her right arm. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Mark eyed her arm up, "Does it hurt?"

Jane gave Mark a glare, "Only like a bad itch." She reached out with her fingers and then the ten red ribbons struck out at Tom.

Mark lunged a moment later.

Tom bent his arms to prepare to strike, and then he rushed forwards. The ribbons approached his shoulders. He struck at the ones heading towards his left arm with his sword. Three ribbons were deflected from his left arm, but one was able to wrap around his shoulder. Tom's right arm ended up with six ribbons around it. Mark rammed his whole body into Tom's sword. And just managed to loose it from his grip. The sword went flying several feet into a wall and clanged off of it. Mark turned to face Tom and jumped at him to punch him in the face. The wolf man and the man with the gun leaned forwards as they watched with interest. They also both prepared their weapons just in case they would have to help Tom.

As the three remaining ribbons began to wrap around Tom's center Tom just smirked. His two left fore-finger tips started to glow and then he cut three of ribbons holding Tom's center and left arm. Jane's ribbons dissolved as she gripped her left arm in pain, strange red marks appearing on her arms. Tom turned his left arm and put his two fingers into Mark's gut. A small splatter of blood flew out from Mark's gut and hit Tom over his left side and center.

Tom withdrew his arm and relaxed his stance. Mark collapsed onto his back and gripped his gut in pain, small amounts of blood constantly bubbling out of his gut. Tom stretched his shoulders and rolled his head around for a few moments. He glanced over to Jane who was gripping her arm in pain, her eyes tearing up slightly. She was intermittently screaming and sobbing. Mark was trying to make noises but he was to out of it to be sure. Tom knelt and opened up his palms, a golden glow starting to emit from them. "You two made a decent showing, you need a fair bit of work, but if that was without any formal training I'm impressed."

The wolf man showed up at Tom's side holding a small vial of liquid. He handed it to Tom, "This should help deal with most of his internal injuries." He said handing it over.

Tom took the vial in one hand and started gradually pouring it into Marks mouth. "Thanks Luca. Tom said as he dribbled the vial a bit at a time. "How is the woman looking?" Tom asked.

Luca, the wolf man, looked over his shoulder at Jane. The man with the gun was holding her arm and a blue glow was coming out of his hand. "It looks like Jean has a frown on his face. But the red lines are getting smaller and Jane seems less hysteric." Luca eyed up Jane for a moment. "Was cutting three of her ribbons really necessary?"

Tom extended his hand, "Get me my big sword I need the extra power to heal Mark."

Luca slowly walked over picked up his sword and handed it to Tom. "Answer the question."

Tom sheathed his sword and it started to glow. Mark finally stopped gasping and wheezing and relaxed and closed his eyes. "It may have been excessive, but it was necessary. She had never felt pain from her ribbons before so I had to test it."

"That could have given her a heart attack. As it is now those red lines went right through her clothing and could have done something terrible to her body."

"I'll get to healing her in just a moment. If she survived the initial impact then she should be fine now."

"Why can't you be more concerned about these people damn it?" Luca shouted. "I could understand you if it was me hurting on the ground, but why aren't you concerned about other human beings!"

"Because her injuries aren't very damaging. She's still conscious; I see no reason to be concerned about her." Tom said as he lifted his hand from the center of Marks gut for a moment. After eyeing up the now tiny hole in the middle of his body he put his hand back over where he had done his damage. "Just put her to sleep when we're done and give her a room. They both did good enough to pass."

Luca tried to say something but quietly went over to a plant growing in one of the green patches. He picked a flower and began to crush it in his hands. Walking over to Jane, who was still gripping her face in wide eyed terror he blew the dust into Jane's face saying, "Welcome to the Adirondack spiritual school, enjoy your stay."


	3. Chapter 3

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 3

Begin

Jane awoke with a sudden start. She remembered a sudden pain in her arm and reached out to grab it but then felt none. After a moment of crisis and confusion her breathing settled. She began to take stock of where she was. Her room was a slightly smaller room; the walls were made of stone. The bed was an old carved wood bed. A brush with her fingers told her that the wood had some sort of aura properties. They were faint and probably did nothing however.

As her shock fully passed reason and thought returned. She remembered that she had been at some spiritual 'academy' north of New York City for about two days now waiting for her time to get an appraisal from the master of the school. She had but she had done miserably, her technique had suffered its first real defeat and she had been in major pain from it. As Jane looked at her arm she realized that she was in her clothes from yesterday, three strips on her arms missing and all. "How long was I out if I'm still in these things?" She asked herself as she got up. Jane made her way to the door. The fact that there were only two small windows in the room not helping her.

As she opened the heavy wooden door Jane entered a narrow, but tall, hallway. The hallway was also made of stone. Jane could hear noises coming from a ways away. She moved towards the noises assuming it was the large open training center in the middle of the building she was hearing. As she traversed the confusing hallways, of which three partially surrounded the central pavilion, she noted that there were a surprising number of doors for the space between each hallway. On an impulse she opened one door she came across to find a room filled with papers and filing cabinets, as well as a few strange historical looking novelty items, and another door on the other side of the room. "Why would someone put two doors to every room? Doesn't allow for a lot of privacy."

A loud, "Hi-ya!" Drew her attention back to her task at hand.

Jane slowly walked into the main pavilion where she saw seventeen people scattered about. Four or so were sitting around the wolf-man Luca who was lecturing about some plant by the base of a pillar. Jean was overlooking about half a dozen people striking out with two fingers at dummies. Most were falling short or overshooting their targets entirely. Tom had half of the atrium to himself and doing a sparring match with three students while six others watched. The three students seemed to be keeping Tom occupied if nothing else when Tom noted Jane. About thirty seconds later each student was on their back. "Good morning." Tom addressed Jane with a wave.

She backed away slightly from Tom, half expecting him to reach out and slice her with his strange two finger technique. "Uhh, hi." Jane said rather nervously.

Tom eyed her up, "You're still wearing that get up with too much leather?" He asked. He gave a stern look to a woman who was on his left around the circle. "Lisa, I thought I told you to change her into something else. Or at least take off the leather; that shit can't breathe."

The woman hung her head slightly in embarrassment, "I didn't want to do anything to her."

Tom sighed and shrugged, "Hey any of you ladies want to help Jane here change?" He asked out loud to the group at large.

One enthusiastic woman with darker skin piped up shouting, "Me, me, me!"

Tom shook his head at the woman who had been with Jean, "No, it's not fair to Sakura for you to do this Kayra." Tom pointed to the only woman around Luca, "Speaking of which, Sakura would _you _be willing to do that?"

The only woman who had been near Luca blushed a bit. Jane interrupted, "I don't need someone's help to get out of my clothes. I'm not a cripple."

Tom put his fingers on his chin, "Well I was jumping to assumptions, but you got here on your own so it makes sense. Sakura want to show her were to eat and where to shower instead?"

"I don't want to miss out on Luca's lesson." Sakura piped up from where she was seated.

Luca chuckled, "You're so good at this you don't need the lesson really." He said to her, "But if you want I'll cover the important stuff later, it's not much, just a few names and such."

Sakura thought for a minute then nodded and stood up. "I guess I can do that."

Tom nodded, "Good Jane'll probably be hungry after passing out mid afternoon yesterday so get her some food first. And then you should show her to her stuff, she'll need something not broken to wear, you know where her room is right?" Sakura nodded. "Good, speaking of rooms, Mike one where are you?"

One student on the ground raised his hand, "Here master."

Tom noticed this and picked Mike up, "I need you to do a check up on mike two; you know where his room is right?"

The Mike who had been on the floor dusted himself off, "Yup, I'll be back in a few minutes."

Jane was somewhat shocked; the Tom who was in here now was a very different person from the one she had fought yesterday. Admittedly he was doing all these things for her with little interest in his voice or face, but the Tom she had fought was a sadistic cruel calculating beast of a fighter. Although she definitely saw the beast in his quick change of tempo from his mock battle. While she was contemplating Sakura gave her a tap on her shoulder.

"Come on, you've got to be starving. I'll show you to the in house eatery." Sakura gave Jane a tug.

Jane felt her hunger strike her harder still. She willingly ran after Sakura as she traveled to the head of the atrium.

Tom watched the two leave, once they were gone his eyes turned to Kayra who was ogling Jane's backside. "Will you stop that?" He said giving her a thump on the head.

Immediately around the corner from the exit of the Atrium that Jane and Sakura used was a deep looming stairwell, dark all the way down. "You people live in this darkness."

"No." Sakura mumbled as she flipped a light switch, "We just like to keep the electricity bill down." The Stairwell lit up with the light of several electric light bulbs. "We don't live in the dark ages, the grounds were electrified forty years ago, and they've been upgraded about every fifteen to twenty years since. This particular system was put in about two years ago. But enough about electricity you need food." Sakura tugged Jane on a start down the stairs and then rushed ahead of her.

Jane was too busy looking at the big rocks. This building was built with massive stones, there also seemed to be no mortar between them. As Jane made it to the bottom of the stairwell, about fifteen feet down. "These stones are huge, how in the hell was it made?"

"With time money and people." Sakura said from behind a door. "This building is _old_. Just come through the door I'm just looking to see what we have." Jane opened the door to find a fully stocked kitchen. "What do you want to eat?" Sakura asked, "Odds are we have it."

Jane walked to the massive fridge and opened it up. "How in the hell do you guys have all of this stuff."

"Different places, the church pays master Tom for his services and we apparently have massive private funding from rich people." Sakura said as she got herself a carton of orange juice.

"_Master_ Tom. Are you, that Kayra chick and Tom in some kinky threesome relationship?" Jane asked as she scoured the fridge.

Sakura stepped back in shock, "We are most certainly not in some love triangle. Just Kayra and I have a relationship."

"You and Kayra…" Jane mumbled while looking at the milk. She pulled out the milk and set it on the counter and then asked, "Wasn't Kayra female too?" Jane asked.

"Yes she was, _and_?" Sakura asked back.

Jane shrugged, "Just wanted to make sure. So does Tom know about your relationship?" Jane asked.

"Yes he knows about all of the relationships between students that go on long enough."

"So the dude is cool with student-student relationships." Jane eyed up a large loaf of what seemed to be homemade bread and produced a ribbon.

"As long as they're legal under state law he's fine with them."

Jane sliced the bread with her ribbon. "He seems like he can be a nice guy when he's not attempting to murder his students."

"Ha ha ha ha…" Sakura trailed "You think he was trying to kill you and Mark? Trust me he'll take you with him on a trip soon and you'll understand that what he did to you two is small time."

"Oh really." Jane mumbled irritated. "What would you call what he did to the two of us."

"A test." Sakura said smugly. "We all had to go through something similar to get in." Sakura ran her left hand in a chop across her gut and to her drink holding right arm. "He cut my skin open all the way like that. I took about as long to heal as you did to sleep. The good news is that it gets better starting now."

Jane raised an eyebrow but decided to not talk about the subject any further. "So what exactly do you all _do _here? I mean I was only here for a few days waiting but you guys did a whole lot of things."

"Well the past week was a little unusual because Tom was out visiting a friend of his. But anyone who is here is trying to learn how to control some unusual ability that they have." Sakura said as she sat down at a wooden table in a large eating area outside of the kitchen. "We do training to harness our abilities while getting some backup skills. He'll figure out the best way to train you and start doing it."

Jane's toast popped and she buttered the bread, "Mmm, sounds exciting." She muttered, "Anything else interesting you know about this place?"

"It's pretty damn old." Sakura muttered. "Been some sort of secretive order place for a long time. It was founded on a contract with the Catholic Church with all sorts of odd clauses. Thus so far the church has seen fit to honor their end of the deal, which probably won't change for a while. Tom still honors his end of the deal as the best he can. He's the seventh generation master of the temple, and inheritor of some secret technique." Sakura took a sip. "What else do you want to know?"

Jane grabbed a grapefruit to top off her now massive plate. Stuffing the toast in her mouth she asked, "Who is the wolf man? I doubt most people can turn into animals."

"He's another master of the same secret technique as Tom. The guy with the gun is another master too. The wolfman, Luca, is apparently a demon, a wolf demon naturally. I don't know why Tom let him in; the guy has a big issue with demons."

Jane sat down, "Big issue with demons? Those things are real?"

Sakura gave Jane a flat look, "You saw a man turn into a wolf before your eyes. And your doubting demons exist?"

Jane quietly bit her bacon.

"I can tell you that you're going to have to go on a hunting trip sometime soon."

Jane raised an eyebrow and sputtered out, "Hun'nin' twip?" With a mouthful of cinnamon bun. She swallowed, "We go deer hunting?" Jane asked sounding enthusiastic.

"No, demon hunting. And it's usually not all of us just one or two of us. Once in a blue moon he'll take a student or two out. Predictably after a new student arrives and on otherwise random occasions he'll take out students who have reached, as he calls it, 'A new level of power'. I've only been out twice myself. And both times I didn't do much. The second time I did more but still I did very little."

Downing a glass of milk Jane rubbed her chin, "So if I get good I can go hunting more often."

Sakura gave Jane a strange look. "After that last experience with Tom you _want _to go after beings that can do the same and worse to you?"

Jane smirked, "If I get better I'm sure I'll be able to fix that little problem."

Sakura leaned way back into her chair, "If you think so."

Jane stood inside the women's bath. "So there are six women here right?" She asked.

"Seven here now including you."

"This is a _huuuuge _bathhouse. I mean it's a proper bathhouse not even just a fancy set of stalls. Several fully enclosed showers, hot tub, and you said there's a proper hot spring in another building."

Sakura pointed to the other side of the showers, "The artificial hot spring is on the other side of that door. The last master worked on re-modeling the bath's and wanted it put in. Tom was opposed but when he got control of all that stuff it was done. He decided to keep it."

Jane looked at her clothes in her arms, "I think I can find my way back to the central atrium. Thanks for showing me around. I'm going to enjoy this for a bit."

Sakura gave her a wave, "You can come back when you're done, no rush." She walked out and into a more modern stone hallway. As she closed the door behind her she was bumped into. Falling on the damp wooden floor she reflexively reached out for her aura and prepared her two fingers to strike. But when she saw the falling face. Her attacker fell down and struck her chin and bounced off onto her bosom. Sakura rapidly threw her attacker off shouting, "Mark, watch where you're going!"

The first Mark lay on the floor rubbing his head. "Don't try and kill me then."

Just then Jane jumped out of the shower room with her hands bearing their ribbons. Her own body stark naked and the front of her right arm wet. "What the hell is going on?" She asked before she looked down. "Oh god damnit don't seize your aura like that. Ever since I've learned what sensing an aura is I've jumped at every instance of someone's aura rapidly rising." Jane put her palm to her face and sighed, her ribbons trailing down from her fingers

Mark quietly stared at Jane for a moment, "You're naked you know." He let out quietly.

"Yea, yea, whatever." Jane said with a dismissive wave, "If I think someone's life is in danger I'll jump no matter what I look like. Look just move before I decide to eviscerate you."

Mark chose not to test his luck and made a quick scramble. Jane helped Sakura up, "You okay?" She asked.

Sakura chewed her lip, "Aren't you embarrassed at all about that?" She asked slightly concerned.

Jane laughed heartily. "Enough people have seen me naked for me to learn not to care about crap like that." After she stopped laughing she gave Sakura 'a look'. "You know you could go back to what you were doing." She said with a gentle push, "I need to shower damn it."

Sakura walked down the hall away from the bath doors and turned a corner while Jane rapidly disappeared to shower.

About a minute after everybody had left the other Mark popped his head out of the men's shower; a towel was wrapped around his waist. "So what was going on out here?" He asked. He turned his head up and down the hallway. "Weird," Mark let out as he closed the door, "It felt like the other Mark bumped into a couple of ladies from his aura."

About an hour later Jane finally opened up the shower door, fully dressed and clean. Her old clothes had gone down a convenient laundry chute. Her new clothes lacked the borderline dominatrix amounts of leather and went for much more ordinary looks. Ordinary at least if the weather was 90 degrees or higher. Her shirt was plain, and red, and small. And her shorts were plain, and blue, and small. "Now how do I get back to the atrium?" Jane quietly looked up and down the hallway seeing if anything obvious would point her towards the atrium. Suddenly a minute but perceptible spike in a demonic aura caught Jane's attention. "Either that's the wolf guy or whatever happened when Tom first got back. But it'll get me closer to the atrium."

Jane took off down the hallway and jogged around trying to take stairwells, hallways and doors to try and get closer to where the source of the aura. For several minutes Jane felt lost traveling from stairwell to stairwell and spending a few minutes in one building. Finally she came across a doorway and, on an impulse, opened it. Jane found herself facing the main building. The skies were cloudy and letting out a mist of rain. It was somewhat warm out, but not very. Jane didn't notice the chill though, she rarely did. The wet she did notice but didn't particularly care about. The other thing she noticed was the presence of a human aura in the same place as the demonic aura. The human's aura was slightly less than the demonic one, but she hadn't noticed it until now. "How the hell didn't I notice that?" Jane muttered to herself. Jane looked around to see if there was a better way to get into the central atrium. A door on an addition to the main building caught her eye, she ran across a large empty dirt and grass field to the door. Once she opened _that _door she could feel the two aura's even more. Jane stopped running, slowly picking her way around taking several minutes to travel down a hall to turn a corner and find the familiar stone of the central building. The two auras were obvious to her now. She rounded a corner and found Mark fighting a wolf. The wolf was snarling and bearing his fangs at him while Mark was punching at the wolf.

Jane stepped into the atriums outer pavilion until she was right behind a pillar. She quietly looked on enjoying the spectacle of violence. Mark and the wolf disengaged for a moment. Mark took a moment to wipe some dribbling blood off of his face. The wolf licked his lips some blood on his mouth. A few moments passed and then suddenly the wolf disappeared from sight. Mark's head seemed to wildly scan around as he was trying to follow the wolf. His head was looking over his right shoulder when he made a punch upwards towards his center. He turned his head after the punch, but he essentially made the punch blindly.

Jane looked at Mark in shock. Suddenly at her ear a voice quietly said, "You wondering how Mark made that punch?" Jane jumped in surprise and fell over behind the column. Tom had been leaning over her left shoulder and she hadn't noticed.

Tom made an idle pout at Jane on the ground but leaned out from behind the column and shouted, "Luca, Mark, you've done a good job take a break and heal up those scrapes." After Luca transformed he and Mark shook hands and walked over to a planting as Luca picked a plant.

Tom turned his head back to Jane. "You took your time trying to find this place."

"Hey," Jane countered, "I was taking my time; you didn't give me a time limit!"

Tom nodded, "I'm not complaining as much as I'm surprised. Someone who can use aura's shouldn't take half an hour to get only halfway across the complex."

"How do you know how long I took to get here?"

Tom extended a hand, "I sensed your aura burst from when you tried to kill the other Mark."

Jane stammered for a moment, "I didn't… I didn't try to kill him!"

Tom shrugged, "Sakura's account and what I sensed said so, but I'll take your word for it. Anyways I sensed your little aura burst when you three bumped into each other and decided to keep an extra eye on you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jane said as she finally took Tom's hand to get up. "I understand Sakura telling you about our little show but what the hell do you mean by sensing and keeping an eye on me and all that crap?"

Tom sighed, "You have no training at all do you." He put his hands in his pockets and walked into the central atrium. He signaled for Jane to follow him with a twitch of his shoulder. "All people possess an aura. Some just can access more than others, or use it in different ways et-cetera." He stood in the center of the atrium and faced Jane. "Some people can physically manifest their aura; it's one way to judge people's power." Tom began to produce a golden glow that stretched out a few inches from his body. "However some people," he started as he took a hand out of his pocket and pointed it at Jane, "can't manifest their aura's like this. You can put it into techniques but I can tell that the visible presence does not equal the true strength you have. Mark too works like this. His aura is almost never visible in his techniques." Tom's gold field spread even wider, it stretched to about two feet from his body. Jane gripped her head as she felt a strange pressure. "Odds are you're sensing me right now. Unless you have a history of migraines I don't know about."

Jane righted herself while she continued to grip her face, "I tend to feel pretty piss poor when I'm sober."

Tom shrugged, "Maybe I can fix that."

"No, I think I'm good enough." Jane muttered to herself.

"Back to being on topic." Tom said with a wave as his glow faded and then disappeared. Jane head still pulsed. "People can visibly hide their auras. The fact that your head is still pounding should tell you that much." Finally the pressure on Jane's head rapidly let up and disappeared in about three seconds. She massaged her head for a moment and relaxed herself. "You seem to have no control over your ability to sense auras. Such that when something ridiculous is nearby you will cripple yourself in feeling it out. At other times you can't feel jack shit. Or well close to it." Tom took two fingers and stuck them on Jane's forehead. A small pinpoint glow appeared on his fingers. "God you are an alcohol and disease ridden thing." He muttered as he held his fingers in one place for a time.

Jane looked up towards the taller Tom, "I just know how to have fun, you're just a giant boring hard ass."

Tom shook his head, "Some of the things in your body would kill you in less than a decade if you weren't as capable as you were with you aura." He paused as he closed his eyes. "Scratch the capable part, you just have tons of strength, way more than you're using as is. Man when you learn to tap into all that strength you'll be dangerous."

Jane threw off Tom's fingers. "Ok so you're looking into my inner reserves of strength, or whatever, can you do something about giving me ability to tap into it?"

Tom opened his eyes and shook his head, "No, I couldn't do anything for your strength that's a shortcut."

"Is it that you can't or you won't?" Jane asked.

"Can't and won't. I know no way to let you get some of that strength or that it would be a good thing if I did. You should learn to use your strength as you get it. Otherwise you'll just be stupid with it and probably go and maim or kill yourself." Tom turned to Mark, "Mark two, I have a question."

Mark was sitting up against a pillar talking with Luca, "Yea what do you want to ask?"

"Who was the person that sent you up to me?"

Mark got up and started walking as he rubbed a sore spot on his side. "I don't know her name."

"Do you know what she looked like, how she fought? Any sort of describing features?"

Mark rubbed his head. "She was a taller paler woman. She talked through telepathy, quiet and sultry most of the time. Her weapons were some weird floating things that fired beams. I bumped into her in a particularly violent Harlem neighborhood, but she said that she normally hangs out much further north."

Tom rubbed his chin, "I believe I know who this may be. But the problem is how to find her. I think she may be south of us right now, but that's assuming she's telling the truth."

"Do we have a reason _not _to trust her?" Jane asked.

Tom set his hands down and started to walk. "Not really." He mumbled to himself. _I'm just naturally a bit suspicious._

"Hey where are you going?" Jane asked.

"The map room. I need to figure out where lady Lulu is. Come on I want you guys along on this." Tom motioned with a wave over his shoulder.

Jane and Mark gave each other a look, "Lady Lulu?" The both asked at once.

"It's what she goes by." Tom said non-chalantly. Tom made a few turns and went through a fairly stout door; inside there were several large pictures. Some looked like modern maps; a few were definitely just pictures. One larger wall hanging was definitely a very old map that was far out of date. A few dragons and sea serpents dotted the coast of North America. Tom regarded that map for a moment. "Maybe this one will do." He muttered as he strode up to the map.

Jane eyed it up, "What good is this map for anything? We've got what looks like close to thirty sea serpents on the map."

"Well it's not the most accurate but it may be accurate _enough_." Tom lifted up two growing fingers to the map and very, very, gently tapped a spot on the map. A small gold wave spread across the map and several golden dots appeared. Tom eyed up the map. "Oh hell who am I kidding I can't figure out jack shit out from this map."

Luca laughed from the doorway of the room. "You can, you just don't want to." He walked over to the map and hovered a finger over a dot. "This is Jean right here. The dot is hovering around very nearby. He pointed at the brightest dot on the map, "This is the two of us." He said with a point, then he moved his finger a bit south on the map. "This here is either Lulu or her brother. That's a short ways south of here at the north end of the current railroad path."

Tom looked at the map. "How in the hell can you tell where that dot is?"

"I know where she lives." Luca said with a smirk.

Tom quietly looked at the map. "Well that's a multi-hour trip. I guess we'll have to drive."

Luca snorted, "And waste the gasoline like that. You could just run there in about the same time."

"It's not for me, it's for them." Tom said with a thumb over his shoulder. "I doubt they could do that run yet."

"What run, you think we can run all the way down there from this far north?" Jane said as she looked at the map.

Tom nodded, "I could do it. Maybe a five to eight hour run."

Jane snorted, "That is almost as long as we would have to drive. There's no way in hell that you could do that."

Tom shook his head, "You have no idea what you can do if you get strong enough. Come on you two let's just get in the car and try to not kill each other between here and Lulu's house."

After eight hours of driving a mid size red car pulled up a small hump to an out of the way Victorian looking house. The house was a small yellow house in the traditional Victorian fashion. As the people inside of the car, Tom, Jane and Mark, all got out. As the trio closed the door Tom went to the hatch and opened it up to reveal his big sword and two small swords. He tucked those swords, in their sheathes, under his left arm and walked up to the door. Jane and Mark both looked at Tom uneasily, "Should we prepare for a fight?" Jane asked.

"No." Tom said flatly, "The fight will be later. I just want to have my tools ready." He stepped up to the porch and took a moment to look at the doorbell, a literal bell. "You guys should find this interesting." Tom said to himself as he pulled the string and rung the bell.

End


	4. Chapter 4

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 4

Begin

Tom shook the cord attached to the bell and stepped back slightly, adjusting the swords under his one arm.

Jane looked at this all very confused. "Are you sure this is the right house? It's kinda in the middle of nowhere and rather plain and… homey for some crazy spiritual master."

"My school is even more eclectic than this house. Are you trying to say something?" Tom said as he stood in place.

"Well I suppose so…" Jane muttered as she tried to figure out what exactly that said.

Mark tensed himself up, "I can feel her, and it's definitely her. Her aura is so unique, spread out, spotty, and if it's not in random spots then it's extremely diffuse."

Tom nodded, "That's her aura alright. You are feeling her that's for sure. It's her unique ability, those remote things that she used. It's an interesting ability; she attacks you with physical objects remotely while still using her aura."

The door opened right in Tom's face. Nobody was behind the door. Jane shouted, "Ok so how the hell does she do that, can she turn invisible?"

Tom shook his head, "No, it's either remote machinery or aura abilities. Fifty, fifty."

Tom stepped in, but Jane shouted at him, "Hey why are you going in?"

Tom chuckled, "She opened the door after I rang the bell why wouldn't I enter." Tom quietly entered the house and managed to disappear into an unnaturally dark shadow.

Jane put her palm against her face. Mark asked her, "You scared of going in?"

"Hell no, just confused as hell!"

Mark twitched a bit, "Well I am. You didn't feel her when we bumped into her in the city. She can be really creepy sometimes."

Jane snorted, "You're hilarious sometimes. You're really that scared of her?" She asked.

"Yea, the boss guy considers meeting her a big deal so I feel like I should be concerned." Mark said as she snuck forwards in a fighting stance.

Jane snorted again, "Hell I'm not staying here with you. I'm going inside." She stepped in, and suddenly felt a chill. The house appeared wholly empty. Tom had disappeared into shadows almost the second he stepped over the threshold. Now he was outright gone. Jane looked around, the chill physically giving her Goosebumps. Suddenly someone tapped her shoulder. Jane twisted around and struck out with several of her ribbons. She tied up Mark and lifted him up before she realized what she was doing. "Sorry about that Mark." Jane muttered as she let him down. "I don't know why but this place is managing to creep me out."

"So you're striking out in violence, I see, I see…" Mark said with a thoughtful rub of his chin.

"And _what _exactly do you see?" Jane asked with a seething voice.

"Some sort of insecurity, at the bare minimum it's an ordinary human insecurity. Although I suspect it's much more for you, you've had this technique of yours for god knows how long. Now Tom rips you apart without trying and you're suddenly lost." Mark nodded, "That sounds about right."

Jane lunged to kill when she found herself on the floor. Mark was on the ground where Jane had let him down right after entering. A pair of shoes were near Jane's face, one of them tapping in mild irritation.

"What is the problem with you two?" Tom said with a grunt, "You fell prey to ghosts and wayward psychic thoughts." Tom picked up Jane and Mark. "Stay close so if you to try to kill each other again I can stop you."

Jane had a painful headache, and her arms were throbbing where she 'stored' her ribbons. It wasn't as bad as when they were cut but it wasn't very pleasant. Mark "Why the hell am I hurting?" Jane asked.

"Someone, or something, shut down your minds forcefully. You had a spastic moment of a violent aura burst." Tom paused in thought, and then turned his head up the stairs, "For whatever reason Mark didn't." He addressed to Jane.

Mark cracked his neck than stood up. "So what happened again?" He asked.

"We passed out due to ghosts of some shit." Jane summarized.

"Oh, sounds about right." Mark said with a shake of himself. "All I remembered was a ridiculous demonic aura and then I was out cold. Must have been a whole bunch of evil ghosts."

Jane just waved Mark off and followed Tom up the stairs. He had left immediately after he had talked to Jane. And now he was near the top of the stairwell. Tom turned around the corner and went up another stairwell. And then at the top of that stairwell he went up a much narrower stairwell. Jane sighed as she saw the third stairway. "Think there's enough stairs here?" She asked.

"No, I'd say we need some more." Tom muttered back.

Jane sighed and hiked up to the top of the stairs. The top was an attic that was relatively bare, a few chests and miscellaneous items were scattered about. Tom looked around the room his eyes wandering slowly and deliberately. Mark, who had caught up with the other two, asked Jane, "So how long are we gonna just stand here."

As if on cue Tom leapt and grabbed two random objects, one a phony Halloween scepter the other random furniture piece. As quickly as he picked those up he dropped them and grabbed some piece of green jewelry that was hanging, for a second he seemed to be holding all three items at once. A small point on a rounded wall depressed. Once the point in the wall started to depress Tom jumped from holding the three items to putting his hand in the circular depression. A large section of wall collapsed back behind the rest of the circle, revealing a large spiral stairway. "I found even more stairs." Tom said as he looked down the stairwell.

The trio descended down the stairs, now at a much more ordinary pace. As they descended the stairwell got much darker. "You sure this is the right place?" Jane asked. "It sure doesn't look like a benevolent spirit masters house and stairway."

Tom took a moment to look over the edge. "Maybe you're right. I don't know how benevolent Lulu can be." He raised his two fingers on his right hand and they emitted a golden-yellow light. "We'll find out when we hit bottom."

For several minutes more the trio descended. It became very dark as they went even deeper still. After a while Tom's finger light became the only source of light. Sometime after that Mark spoke up, "We are definitely long below ground level, and I'm fairly certain we are below the basement, if there is one. You sure we're going the right way."

Tom kept on walking, "For a while yet I'd say going down is good."

Jane looked over the edge. "Would you say it would be a good idea to skip a few steps going down?"

Tom stopped and looked up at Jane. "If we could control your descent so you guys don't hit the bottom I'd be willing to skip a few steps."

Jane extended her ribbons. "I could drop you guys down a fair ways if you want me to." Jane chuckled a bit, "or if you trust me too."

Tom leaned on the railing, "You think you can handle us?"

"These five things can hold what each of my arms can together, and their much larger and less prone to getting hurt. I'd have to put you down one at a time but I could do it easily enough." To prove her example Jane walked over to Mark and picked him up a foot of the ground with one arm. She had little visible stress on her face despite lifting him up.

Tom nodded, "Put him down and let me go down first. I know where we're going so I'll direct you guys. You think you can manage in low light?"

Mark fumbled through his pockets until he came with a small flashlight. "You can use this Jane." He said handing her his light.

Tom nodded, "Let me down." He pointed across from himself, "Send me to that wall and put me down about a hundred feet or so. That should be _about _where the point we're looking for is."

Jane's Ribbons extended into a small lattice work bucket. "Hop on, we'll see how far you can go."

Jane let Tom down slowly his light extended above his head the whole time. As he dropped lower and lower his finger got brighter and brighter. Suddenly his finger pointed forwards at the wall. Jane took the hint and stopped him as close to the visible stairwell as she could. After Tom hopped onto the stairwell Jane withdrew her ribbons. She took a moment to form her lattice basket and sent Mark down. Once he was there she attached her own ribbons to the railing and jumped off the stairs. She used her ribbons to let her swing and head down the stairs, withdrawing the ribbons as she went down. She came to a stop on the stairs below where she had Tom and Mark down. She reeled her ribbons in until she put her hands around the bar and came onto the stairs. "I'm here." She announced proudly.

Tom shrugged and got back to lighting they way, this time into the wall where a large hallway loomed in front of where he had set everybody down. The hallway was plain unadorned and fairly uneven. It seemed to be hand carved. The height of the hallway was about a full head above Tom's head, and several more above Mark and Jane. As they went down, strange black wisps appeared down the hallway. They seemed unusual, they weren't painted but they were not a pattern in the wall. They had no depth when they were touched, but were just plastered onto the wall. The pattern became less random and darker everywhere as they walked further down the hallway. The darkness absorbed some of the light and Tom turned up the harshness of his light to make it more visible. The harshness of the light was slightly painful on everyone's eyes. Finally the hallway opened up into a small round room with a round stone at the other end. There was a woman at that door looking it over. Although she didn't turn to meet them several strange devices met the trio once they were all in the room. "I would advise you all stay where you are."

"And what would happen if we don't?" Jane asked indignantly.

An aura burst made an explosion in the ground to Jane's left, the hem of her pants were slightly singed. "More of that." The woman on the other end of the room replied. Jane decided to not ask any more questions, or move.

Tom eyed up the space in front of him. He set down his various swords and lifted up his left hand to emit more light. In the vastly increased light faint patterns could be made out on the walls, all made in black but still visible. Tom's head circled around the room skimming over the patterns. Every now and again letting out a short burst of sound from his mouth. Mostly he just scanned. As he reached as far right as his head could go he physically turned around. Mark and Jane both jumped in place hissing, "Stay still!" At Tom.

Tom didn't seem to notice them as he looked straight up over the entrance. He started to look to his left but his head shot back to directly over himself. Quietly he began to mouth something to himself. Eventually he began to speak up making sounds that seemed like words, but none that Jane or Mark had heard. At the other end of the room the woman began to turn to face the trio, a look of shock awe and terror on her face. Tom read to himself rather quietly as his head traveled over a small section of the wall. Finally his tongue seemed to stumble. He made a noise, and then started to choke on that noise. He made a particularly gruesome look on his face and turned, taking a breath in to speak as he did. Suddenly the woman on the other side of the room started speaking; she spoke in a tongue that sounded the same to what Tom had been saying. For minute she spoke and Tom quietly nodded his head in understanding. Finally she stopped speaking and Tom spoke up, "That's all you know?" He asked.

She nodded, "Thanks for reading that out loud to me." She looked at the confused and stressed faces of Jade and Mark. "You two can relax, I won't shoot you."

"How can we trust you?" Jane shouted accusingly.

"I don't know if you can, but you might as well. I'm sorry about the initial hostility this thing has been stressing me for far too long."

Tom sighed as he put out his left hand and picked up his swords. "That explains why you weren't at the door. Come on; let's go upstairs, I'm sure you need some time out of the dark Lu-lu."

"Lu-lu?" Mark and Jane shouted.

"This crazy woman hiding in some deep creepy paradox mine shaft thing is Lu-lu!" Jane shouted.

"This is not the woman I ran into in the city!" Mark said with a point. "She's… god what's wrong with her."

Tom walked over to the woman. Her hair covered up most of her face. Tom shoved aside her hair to find an unhealthily pale and grey and wrinkly woman underneath. "What the hell has been happening to you?" Tom asked quietly.

She nodded to the strange black orb. "It's trying to get loose; I wanted to see what it was before it did. It wasn't what I would call a healthy activity."

Tom looked at the bulge on the wall. "Upstairs now. We're going to get you to New York City. I'm sure that will invigorate you."

Tom gave Lu-lu a tug away from the bulge, despite his immense strength she didn't budge a bit. "I'm not sure…" She trailed.

Tom spun around with a dangerous look in his eye. "**Move**." He said flatly as his grip started to make Lu-lu's bones creak under pressure.

Lu-lu lazily turned to meet Tom's glare and slowly got started, Tom yanked her along furiously. "We're going up." Tom said as he started to leave the room.

"We need light." Mark said as Tom reached the dark hallway.

Tom nodded and spun around, "Take the swords you two." He said with a nod.

"You sure you want us to take those?" Mark asked nervously as he tried not to meet Tom's eyes.

Jane grabbed the two smaller swords, "Sure I'll grab em'."

Tom nodded at mark who reluctantly took the larger sword. Tom raised up his left hand and made a light as he dragged Lu-lu. Mark and Jane followed closely.

The four of them walked in silence down the hallway, Tom kept up a rapid pace, Lu-lu was dragged behind them, Mark and Jane continued to follow closely, both feeling tailed by something.

At the end of the hallway Tom went towards the upwards steps. Mark and Jane both just barely cleared the hallway. Lu-lu suddenly spoke up, "You guys don't have to use the stairs you know." Tom stopped as well and Mark and Jane. Tom looked at Lu-lu suspiciously. "I'm not insane." Lu-lu muttered.

Tom looked at her in the slightly better light of the deep stairwell. "Your face doesn't say that. Are you a vampire now or something?"

"No, I'm just overexposed to something I shouldn't be." Lu-lu muttered mournfully.

Tom quietly thought for a moment. "Jane, block the hallway, mark block the upper stairs, and I'll go on the lower end of her."

Everyone went to the positions Tom assigned. Lu-lu did little more than move with Tom's hands. Tom stood still for a moment when Lu-lu spoke up again, "I will need my hands for this." Tom let go and Lu-lu moved to the edge of the small flat section in front of the hallway. She put her hands together in front of her chest and made a small diamond shape with her fingers and thumbs. Four white devices about the size of someone's head dashed out of the hallway and took up positions in a square at four points around the central stairwell. Small purplish pinkish beams of light stretched down into the darkness. After a few moments a small circular stone platform came up from down below. Lu-lu stepped on, "We'll be taking this up." She said.

Tom, Jane and Mark all followed Lu-lu onto the stone disk. Once they were all on the disk the white devices shot up. After a few short moments the disk followed them. The ride up was fairly silent, the whoosh of the wind being the main noise. After about a minute they reached the top of the stairs and Lu-lu motioned for everyone to get off. Jane and Mark all stepped off but Tom waited. Lu-lu motioned once but then put her finger on her chin and made a very smug fake smile. She got off and Tom stepped off after her. Everyone stepped out into the attic and Lu-lu put her hand on the top of the stairwell, the door closed again. Once the door finally closed Lu-lu smiled a bit. Her face brightened and some of the wrinkles disappeared. She didn't seem to be fully human, but she was more human at least. "Why don't we go downstairs to talk, it'll be much more pleasant." Lu-lu said with some content with her voice.

Tom nodded and motioned for Lu-lu to lead, this time she lead without complaint her steps less dragging than before and with a little bounce in them. Jane Mark and Tom followed, Tom closing the door to the attic behind him.

Down the many stairs the party went, the windows that had previously shown what had been a early afternoon sky now showed a morning sky. Down in the modern kitchen Lu-lu opened a sparse fridge, "There isn't much to eat if you all are hungry. But I'm going to make something."

While Mark and Jane sat down at the small round kitchen table Tom stood at the door to the kitchen. "I'm fine, but how long have _you _been down there."

Lu-lu picked a few things out of the fridge, some eggs, cheese, a milk jug. "I'm not sure; time works differently in that room." She set her foodstuffs down and got out a skillet from a cabinet. She reached into her pocket and produced a small timer. She pressed a button, "By my perception I spent eighteen hours down there. I'll have to check the other timer later to see how long it was outside."

Tom looked out the window again. "I know _we _showed up here in the afternoon, but it seems to be the morning."

Lu-lu started up the skillet, "You could have been there twelve outside hours. How long did it feel for you?"

Tom paused, "An hour or two, maybe a bit more."

"Sounds like it may have been close to twelve hours. You sure you aren't hungry."

Tom huffed, "You sure you should cook. It sounds like you haven't eaten for eighteen hours, or maybe a few months."

Lu-lu chuckled, "I had some food and water down there, I just sent the waste all through the portal. I should shower after I eat at least, and sleep a bit, but food comes first."

Tom picked up his swords from around the chairs that Mark and Jane were sitting in. "What were you doing down there?" Tom asked once all of his swords were in his hands.

"Are you trying to threaten me?" Lu-lu playfully asked.

Tom huffed, "Answer me damn it!" He shouted in frustration.

Lu-lu chuckled. "Why don't you introduce me to your companions first."

Tom sighed, "Mark and Jane meet master Ludmilla, aka. Lu-lu. Lu-lu, meet Mark and Jane two of my students. Now Lu-lu-" Tom started.

"They're _just _your students, not apprentices." Lu-lu said with a playful tone. "I'm sure the girl could make a nice girlfriend."

"Lu-lu!" Tom stammered.

"Oh come now you're great uncle left you with just those two men after he died; someone had to serve as a motherly figure."

"Look I want to teach them, you were in the city a week ago. I just want to know why."

"There was a demon making a Harlem neighborhood especially dangerous." Lu-lu said as she cracked an egg over the skillet. "In dealing with it I decided to go into the chamber you found me in."

"Why the hell did you do that?" Tom shouted. "I know what that chamber has been doing to you, why would you go into it again?"

Lu-lu chuckled, "How do you know today was the first time you've found me in it."

"People don't learn only by sight. I had been hearing about your obsession for years from Uncle and the others."

Lu-lu looked over her ingredients. "It seemed the source of the trouble was a demon from _another _world. Would either of you two like anything special with you omelets?" Lu-lu asked Mark and Jane.

"Got any peppers?" Mark asked.

"Just some green and red peppers." Lu-lu replied.

"Liberally apply them." Mark shouted enthusiastically.

"Ludmilla listen to me!" Tom shouted.

"I am." Lu-lu replied, "I'm just being a generous host."

"Then why the hell are you just dismissing something that's going to kill you!" Tom shouted agitated.

Lu-lu flipped her omelets; they were caught by a small white object with a plate on it. "And you young miss?"

"I'll just take an egg with ketchup." Jane said smugly.

"It'll be out momentarily." Lu-lu removed her hands from the spatula while another two small white things grabbed onto the spatula and another got the plate. "I do it because I know it won't be the thing that kills me. Your… sister told me what would kill me years ago. She gets visions around me with ease."

Tom sighed, "So why are you doing it anyways, it still can't be healthy for you."

Lu-lu smiled as an omelet floated behind her head. "I won't need my body in good health to do what I have to. Now what do you want for breakfast?"

"Why do you want to feed us so much?" Tom muttered as he slouched in annoyance.

"Because I'll take you down to find the demon thing after we all rest and recuperate from being stuck in the chamber." Lu-lu said with a smug smirk.

Tom quietly watched Mike, shortly after he finished his omelet he passed out on the table, Jane didn't notice this and finished devouring her omelet a minute later. She eyed up Mike and said, "Jesus Christ how do you put up with that damn room so well woman." After a moment she slumped over.

Tom raised an eyebrow. "What the hell did you put in the omelets?" He asked lu-lu.

Lu-lu chuckled, "What they asked for, a little smidge of a special sleeping plant to help them get to sleep and stay asleep through the nightmares."

"You got some of that stuff in its pure form?"

"You sure, it'll do some unpleasant things to you if you don't take it with food." A small white device with a plate on it floated in front of Tom's face. "Omelet with cheddar, extra sharp, and a fair bit of the sleeping plant to keep you out for the longest." Lu-lu had a cup of tea delivered to her by the devices.

"That tea is _your _sleep medication?"

"No, I just like the tea." Lu-lu muttered. "I don't need the sleep medication anymore."

Tom took several bites of the Omelet, "You do make good Omelets." He muttered as he slumped back into a chair. "Where did this chair come from…" Tom said as he faded out.

-End-


	5. Chapter 5

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 5

Begin

Tom saw himself traveling around the world. He was in New York, then back up to his mission. Then he was in Japan with mark and another friend… Her name was Selena; it had been a while since he had talked to her. Again he was back in the mission. With Selena and Mark… Someone Tom had known had passed away in Japan, Tom was stronger for it… Again he was in Japan, a big hole was opening up into the demon world and he… was not there, he was dealing with something else somewhere else in Japan. That would be inconvenient. For a moment Tom lunged at a wave of oncoming demons, slaughter in his eyes, it looked fun. Back in Japan Tom was with Selena, Mark and four strange fellows who called themselves the 'Rekai Tantei'. Stupid Japanese. They were talking when a gang of strangely armed and armored fellows appeared from nowhere.

Tom's eyes opened slowly. He found himself lying on his back, staring up at a female's bosom. The road could be heard below him, they were going pretty damn fast wherever they were. "What happened?" Tom muttered, "How long was I out?"

Jane gave Tom a thwack, "Get your head off of my lap!" She shouted.

Tom mumbled to himself as he lifted he head straight up brushing against Jane's chest. Jane twitched as he did so but Tom just rubbed his head in total ignorance as he got up. "Hey…" Tom mumbled sleepily, "Who's driving my car?"

In the driver's seat Lu-lu raised her hand. "I'm the only other one with a license here so it has to be me. How was your nap, you weren't as fitful as the others."

"I saw the future." Tom mumbled as he leaned back in his seat.

"See anything exciting?" Lu-lu asked.

Tom thought, all sorts of memories were still in his head. Luca injured, Mark wielding a strange sword that expanded and collapsed at will, Jane bound by steel on a surgery bed, struggling to escape, and then slaughtering her captors, all while she was naked. Lu-lu dying, her brother coming to avenge her. And a whole lot of ridiculous things. "A few interesting things. Most of it was just stupid."

"You sure you don't mean ridiculous?" Lu-lu asked.

"No, most of the stuff was stupid. Mark," Tom said turning to face the chair in front of him. "You are an idiot when you wield a giant sword that can collapse or something."

"I get a giant sword?" Mark asked.

"Yeah," Tom muttered rubbing his head still, "You also get… A theme song… You abuse the power. It was stupid."

"My own theme song? Sweet!" Mark raised his fist in victory in the front seat.

"Anything about me?" Jane asked.

Tom looked at her, some of his visions were fading from his memory but the ones about her were coming back when he looked at her. Out of interest he leaned to look into rear view mirror and see Mark. Marks visions returned to him. He looked at Lu-lu; her vision hadn't left his head, seeing her didn't do anything to change that. "Not much."

"Not much?" Jane asked.

"Yep."

Jane looked somewhat disappointed, after a moment of moping she asked, "Did you see anything for Lu-lu?"

"Not really. She knows what's coming and I do too. She won't be with our group for long."

In the front seat Lu-lu nodded, "Once we've finished with this issue I see no reason to stay with you all."

Tom's eyes were in a narrow mellow squint. "Yea, that's about it for everyone here."

A few minutes passed in silence. Lu-lu was the next person to pipe up. "Here's the rest stop. We should stop, Tom would probably want to stretch, I'm sure some of you need to use the bathroom, get a snack etc." Lu-lu pulled onto the off ramp into a small parking lot with a small building at the other end. She pulled into the far end of the parking lot and took a spot as far away from the building as possible. Everyone got out of the car.

"I'm gonna use the restroom." Mark waved, "Maybe get a quick snack."

Jane and Mark both went to the building. Lu-lu and Tom stayed by the car.

"So you saw the future?" Lu-lu asked with a chuckle in her voice.

"Yea, what did everybody else see?" Tom asked back.

"Terrible eldritch horror nightmares. Of course none of you had the same reaction. All a bunch of weirdo's."

Tom huffed, "And what did those two do that's so unusual."

"Mark was normal; he had his nightmare and woke up white as a ghost. Most people who go into that chamber do that, when I had first started doing that I did the same. I just got used to it with time. Jane reacted a bit more unusually. She saw similar things but reacted differently."

"Just what could she have done, enjoyed it?" Tom muttered with a chuckle.

"Correct, just that. She said the dream was one of the best times of her life. All of her eldritch horrors served her like she was a goddess. Apparently she can be a horny goddess." Lu-lu chuckled, "Oh youth, so wild and crazy." For a few minutes Tom and Lu-lu were silent. Tom's face had flattened out to nothing while Lu-lu smiled knowingly. She closed her eyes and lowered her head as if she was nodding off. "So what did you _really _see?" She asked.

"I really saw all of that. I didn't lie to Mark at all; he does some stupid things in the future if that was right. I also saw just what you said, you don't have long to live at _all_."

"It is unfortunate." Lu-lu said with a sigh, "But you didn't give me a full answer. Sure you talked about Mark and me but what about Jane."

Tom stared at the building in silence. "I saw a lot of things about her. Not a lot of them were nice things. I figured I wouldn't worry her unnecessarily."

"Oh really?" Lu-lu said. "Do you two become a couple?"

"I didn't see anything about that. Also earlier you said that I had no mother figure. I do. She's just out right now."

Lu-lu snickered, "You call _her _mom? That's the cutest thing I've ever heard."

Tom sighed; his eyes caught Jane and Mark leaving the building. "So why did you put me on Jane's lap?" Tom asked.

"I saw some chemistry between you two psychopaths. She gets wet dreams from Cthulu while you have a fetish for slaughtering hordes of demons."

Tom paused, "Well that was a _pleasant _image. I think I'll take the wheel from here, it'll be much better on my legs, not quite as tight. Ok _mom_." Lu-lu smiled at that little comment.

"What was a pleasant image?" Mark asked as he and Jane walked up to the car.

"Nothing important. Lu-lu has been acting like someone I know." Tom waved, "I'm driving from here on in, negotiate the seating yourselves."

The rest of the car ride was mostly silent. Tom and Lu-lu switched seats and Lu-lu talked up Jane a fair bit but they said nothing terribly important. A few of Jane's stranger social habits came out, but Lu-lu just smiled and laughed when Jane mentioned sadistic tendencies, a bit of a twisted sense of humor and how she was fairly full of herself. Lu-lu just smiled and talked about youth.

Tom parked his car and locked the doors. He packed his swords into a special box and then closed the box. Once everyone was out he tapped the keyhole with his two fingers and several golden lines surrounded the car. "Lead the way Lu-lu." He nodded once the line went all the way around the car.

"What did you do to your car?" Mark asked.

"I gave it a protective aura so nobody could break in. At least not without an RPG or something of similar force."

"You won't need _that _much protection." Lu-lu chuckled.

"Just lead us." Tom muttered.

Lu-lu sighed and closed her eyes. The strange white devices she had in her house appeared from the car. They stowed themselves onto everybody's backs and legs. "I'll need these to fight; it's easiest to store them on you. Now the demon spawn should be nearby."

The four walked around. Traveling a few blocks south they reached a mostly abandoned neighborhood. The buildings were older and stuck right on the boundaries of a natural swampland. The swampland went up to the back porch of one of the buildings it seemed. The buildings were naturally on an unstable foundation and were all leaning in random directions at unsafe angles. Most of the buildings were condemned, a pair of roofs actually hitting one another. At the far end of the block the buildings were much higher up from the water, although they were mostly still aged and looked mostly uninhabited. Lu-lu stopped at the lower end of this block. "We're here; he's in some of these buildings." Lu-lu said with a point at the most abandoned ones.

"Don't tell me that he'll be in one of these swamp houses." Jane muttered.

Lu-lu looked up the block a ways. "He's almost certainly in one of the houses _right _here. Maybe he's in the first dry houses or two, but that's unlikely."

Tom eyed up the buildings as he put his case into his hand like it was one of his swords. "How do you want to search the buildings?"

"Split into two groups, Jane, Mark you'll go with me, we'll search the lower houses." Jane visibly slumped. "Tom you go alone and search the upper houses, start up about eight houses from the corner."

Tom nodded as he quietly walked off. Jane and Mark turned to face Lu-lu. "So how do we get in?" Mark asked. "Most of these buildings are condemned."

Lu-lu gave Mark a mildly irritated look. "We just walk in."

"But isn't that trespassing?" Mark asked slightly shocked.

"Yes, but these are uninhabited houses, no-one will give a damn." Lu-lu sighed. "This is why I wanted both of you with me. You guys would be so reluctant to do this; Tom wouldn't be gentle with handling this for you." She waved with her hand, "Let's start at the first house and go up, we can do this quickly enough."

Tom had only walked up three houses before he turned into an alley between two of them. Quietly he jumped up from window to window to window until he was on the roof. Once he was on the roof he looked around and saw nobody. He put on an inhuman burst of speed and ran from rooftop to rooftop. In one whole minute he had crossed the five rooftops and gotten to the house Lu-lu had wanted him to search. This house was condemned just like every house between here and the swamp corner. Tom eyed up the caution tape on the roof door. There was a lot of it, but it was all snapped at the door opening. "Occupation." Tom said. He opened the door, it was unlocked. There was some noise coming from down the stairs. Tom looked at the stairwell; there was graffiti with what were most likely gang signs. His concern was minimal still. Tom walked down to the second floor, this floor had some furniture, and it was livable, if just so. But, save for a few cats and rats the floor was devoid of life. As Tom walked to the stairs he heard a cat hiss in anger. Tom twisted his head to see the cat. In a windowsill the cat was angrily hissing at the ledge. Tom stared for a few minutes until he heard a deep growling bark, from outside. It sounded like the dog was on the second floor of the building; Tom chuckled and just shook it off.

Tom scanned the first floor even quicker, the first floor wasn't lived in at all. It was empty and almost completely bare of furniture. There was one lamp by the front door and that was it. Tom picked up the lamp and observed it. He pressed the switch; the lamp had power and turned on. Tom turned the lamp off. "Still electricity to this building." He muttered to himself. "Just how condemned is it…" Tom opened the door to the basement and walked down. More gang signs were down the stairs. They were far less cluttered than the ones upstairs. It that upstairs was where new initiates must have practiced their tagging. Tom quietly walked down, seeing light at the bottom and hearing some noise from behind the door.

He stood up against the door and prepared to lean against it to listen in on what was happening on the other side. The door opened before him and a half a dozen men and three women greeted Tom. Opposite Tom one of the guys, seated in the largest chair of any of them, greeted Tom. "Why hello." He said cordially as he folded his hands in front of his face. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Tom smirked as he stepped just immediately inside of the threshold of the room. "Someone did a friend of mine wrong. We tracked him to these buildings here."

"Would you be able to describe this guy?" The man asked.

"Not really." Tom said calmly as he un-snapped his sword cases hinges. He held the case closed with his hands. "Other than he definitely wouldn't seem human. Well he or she wouldn't seem human; I never picked up the gender of this guy."

"You know there are guys like you who would describe _us _as not human." The man said as he leaned back in his chair.

Tom looked around; he now realized that this was probably some minority gang that he had intruded on. "Regardless of that I can say none of you seem to be my target. I suppose I can just let you all be." Tom caught two of the more muscular guys moving behind him to block the doorway. "Do we really have to do this?" Tom asked. He opened up his case just enough to get one hand in and stuck his hand into it. "I'd really prefer not to right now."

"And what do you have in that case?" The boss asked.

"My weapons, nothing you guys would find practical." Tom smirked once he finished.

"Chaveth, get the case from him."

One of the taller, but skinnier, men, a Hispanic of some indeterminate origin approached Tom and grabbed the case; Tom let it go as he stepped out of the doors path. Appropriately the door closed behind him once Tom's watchers moved out of the way. As Chaveth walked across the floor he lost his grip on the case, it opened and the three swords fell out. Tom's large broadsword and one of the smaller blades clattered to the floor. But the other small black blade fell into the floor and pierced it. "What the hell?" The man in the chair shouted. "You just dropped the damn thing, how sharp is that?" He moved to pick the blade up.

Tom leaned to jump at him saying, "Wait don't handle that, it's dangerous."

"Like I'd listen to a guy like you." The man sneered as he bent to pick the sword up.

"Wait you really shouldn't-" Tom was cut off when the door burst open off his hinges and a woman jumped into the room on all fours. She gave Tom a thump in the back and landed on top of him.

"Nyaaaaaaa-n!" She shouted at Tom as she licked him in the face. She had silver hair all tied up in a fanciful knot behind her head. She was wearing a yellow shirt with some Japanese slogan on it and anthropomorphic fruit. The shirt exposed a substantial amount of her cleavage and midriff, not enough to be scandalous but enough to draw attention. Her Capri's gripped her legs so tight they looked to be painful. Her shoes were well worn yellow converses that were getting holes in the side. She looked to be no older than 22-23 at the oldest and could quite possibly be seventeen or eighteen.

"What the fuck!" The boss shouted as he recoiled from the blade in the floor.

"You took the words right out of my mouth." Tom hissed. "You're not a goddamn Japanese cat get offa me!" Tom swatted an arm at the woman, it tapped her side and she flew into the wall.

"Jesus Christos!" Chaveth shouted, "This guy is some demon!"

Tom crawled up from the ground massaging his back. "I'm not the demon. I just tapped her side; she's the one who did the jump."

"Bullshit!" Someone shouted.

"Naaaaaaaaaah." The woman said from the floor. "He's telling the truth." She was laughing as if someone had told a great joke. "Thomas, buddy, how are you doing my boy?"

"Selena, why the fuck did you jump me like that?" Tom muttered as he straightened out his back.

"It was just too much fun to resist!" Her voice peaked into a very cutesy twelve year old voice. Something her body did not say was the case. She still lay on the ground pretending to paw her face.

"Stop acting like a cat, it's not fooling anyone." Tom said harshly.

The woman, Selena, visibly pouted. "Well yeah I didn't fool that cat on the second floor but you didn't have to rub it in." She got up. "So what the fuck have you been up to you demon slaying sonova bitch?" She walked over to Tom and rubbed his hair aggressively.

Tom shook her off. "Why are you here?"

"It's time for me to visit Luca. I'm in gonna be in heat soon and just _need _him."

Tom shook her off more as he picked up his two swords not in the ground. "You say way too much. And why are you _here _and not at the mission?"

"Luca said you might need my help. He pointed me in the right direction and I came down for a visit." She jumped up against Tom and grabbed his black sword, "Oooooh what is thiiiiiiiii-s?"

Tom sighed, "A special work by me. Powered by the souls of demons. Demons that I killed."

Selena smiled, "Always rude as ever. Speaking so calmly about killing my kin and using their souls as a power source." She eyed the sword up. "Can I try it out?"

Tom shrugged as he moved to leave, "Knock yourself out."

Two guns safeties were turned off behind Tom. "Where are you going?" The man on the chair asked as he got out his own gun.

"Out." Tom replied. "I'm leaving _her _to deal with you."

"You keep on thinking you can leave." The man on the chair got up and leveled his gun at Tom. "The only way I see you leaving is either beaten half to death or actually god-damn dead."

Tom walked to the door unimpeded by gunfire. As he opened the door Selena plucked the black sword stuck in the floor from the floor. The man who had been in the chair was missing his arm near his wrist. The black sword already in Selene's hand was dripping blood. "I think I won't have to do a damn thing."

Selena had a wild grin on her face. "You make wonderful things my boy. These swords are wonderful items." Two small blades came out of each side and the large round spot between the handle and blade opened to reveal an eye. "You have such a morbid motif." Selena chuckled.

Tom glared down at the two muscular men in front of the door, using his height over their muscle. They both moved out of the way quickly, although they kept their guns out. As Tom went up the stairs one of the two men turned his gun on Tom and prepared to fire. Selena cut off his arm just below the shoulder, blood flowing onto the flood and splattering over her shoe. "Try not to do a half measure." Tom said as he turned the stairs.

Selena laughed, "Well you heard the man, either you give up and I try to re-attach your arms or you all die. Which will it be?"

In the first home the party of Lu-lu, Mark, and Jane were busy searching the first home top to bottom. The first home was virtually devoid of any signs of life other than a fair bit of blood by the outer hatch to the basement. Lu-lu had insisted that they would search the basement last. Now they were on the basement. They stood in front of the door. "You two should go out back to the hatch."

"Why do you want us to go there?" Jane asked.

"Because we should go to each door. I'm getting a strange feeling and the blood doesn't help it."

"So why do you want two of us at one door and one at the other door. And why do you want to split us like that?"

That other door is rusted shut and physically you are both stronger than me. But in terms of aura I'm stronger than any one of you. Also I don't want to have to be out in the swamp and ruin my clothes."

"God damnit." Jane muttered, "Let's go Mark."

Out back the 'backyard' or what once had been that was now a tidal zone. Currently the tide was low and the mud and debris was exposed. It was shallow surface change, but it was gradually turning into a marshland. Another five years and the house would collapse due to the changing of the land.

Mark walked up to the storm cellar doors and prepared to grab them and rip them open. Jane waved him away, "I can apply the most strength here." Jane extended all of her ten ribbons to each of the two handles and stepped back from the door. She heaved her arms up and the doors violently jerked open with a loud sound. Jane and Mark both looked into the basement. Some inky water that looked akin to dirty oil greeted them, along with the smell of dying bacteria. "Age before beauty?" Jane motioned to Mark.

"Ignoring the question of looks I think I'm a few months younger than you." Mark said, Jane's face dropped as she took a step over the edge. "I'll go first though." Mark offered. Mark stepped over the edge with one foot and almost immediately lost his footing. "Oh god!" Mark shouted, "This is _damn _slippery!"

Jane caught mark with a few of her ribbons. "I suppose I can lower you." She offered.

Mark looked into the inky muck below. "Just lower me to the bottom step and then I'll walk. I don't know how deep this is."

Jane lowered Mark to the bottom step after which he took steps down. Mark sank into the murky mix until he was up to his thighs. "I don't think I'll need much support anymore." Mark said as he turned his head. Jane was beginning to release him, but a strange inky black figure was behind her. "Jane behind you!" Mark shouted.

Jane turned to find a black humanoid figure that seemed to be made of the same murky oil looking substance. It was growing a blade of some sort from an arm while it prepared for a swing at Jane. Jane jumped forwards and up and then rapidly retracted her ribbons on Mark, towing herself towards Mark through the air. She retracted one set of her ribbons into her right hand and then shot it at the figure while she was flying. The ribbons began to wrap around the figure but he fell apart. Jane proceeded to fly into the other wall and made a not so gentle thump against the wall. She fell into the black muck in the basement with a splash while Mark tumbled over in much the same manner. Marks head kept above water, while Jane was unfortunately fully submerged.

Jane jumped up breathing heavily as the basement door was shoved open; Jane shot her ribbons at the door, piercing through it. From the other side Lu-lu shouted, "What's going on your aura's just surged for a moment."

Seven houses up the block Tom felt an abrupt aura surge from both Mark and Jane. Shortly after he could feel Lu-lu's aura also become more powerful. Tom quietly jumped out the nearest window and then once again climbed up on the roof. He looked down the block; he could only feel the three distressed familiar auras of Lu-lu, Mark and Jane. There was no sign of an aggressive aura around them. Still it would be best for him to investigate. This house was empty anyways.

In the first house Lu-lu's small white devices flew out towards where the strange thing had been before. They focused in on a spot and fired small blue aura bursts at the ground. Another two got up underneath Jane's shoulders and carried her up above the murky basement. "Are you ok? Can you breathe?" Lu-lu asked Jane.

Jane coughed and heaved for a few moments sputtering out the black muck. "Jesus fuck this stuff tastes like shit."

"Don't swallow it then." Lu-lu muttered as she looked about.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jane asked she continued to spit to clean out her mouth.

"Looking around while using my bits to look around."

"You're what now?"

"My bits." Lu-lu replied as Jane felt a push from her right armpit. "That's what I call my strange white things."

At the other end of the basement Mark was slogging towards Jane and Lu-lu. He asked, "Where did you get the name from?"

Lu-lu tapped her chin in puzzlement. "I really don't know now that I think about it. I just kinda chose this name for it."

Mark shouted back, "I really like the name so you know."

Suspended in the air Jane shouted, "Mark behind you, that thing!"

Mark turned, the thing was back again with its arm now some sort of hammer looking contraption. Mark spun around as fast as he could and made a powerful punch at the thing. The thing splattered all across the walls onto the rest of the inky sludge that was in the basement.

Lu-lu pointed her hand, "Blast them." She said. The various bits, eight in all, flew from all sorts of strange places and fired where the oily thing had splattered, once again dropping Jane. Jane didn't go under this time; she managed to catch a solid footing in the much more solid mud below the oily top layer. She did sink fully chest deep however and found herself solidly stuck.

For a moment everyone stayed still as they watched the waves on the surface of the black water slowly subside. After a moment Mark Jane and Lu-lu all let out the breaths that they were holding. Immediately after they did the thing burst out of the water and lunged at Jane's face. Lu-lu jumped in the way, the thing attaching itself to Lu-lu's face and smothered her nose and mouth.

At the storm cellar door Tom shouted, "Lu-lu!" Recognizing Tom's voice she raised up a free hand, a strange golden eye symbol appearing across her palm. Tom gritted his teeth at the other end of the cellar. "Damn it, I hate the future." He muttered as he raised his own right arm with his palm open. An eye appeared on his palm and several golden lines appeared between the two sets of eyes. For a moment they simply met in the middle, surrounding Mark, but ignoring him. Then a large golden orb flew out of Lu-lu's hand and traveled over Marks head the Golden lines retreating towards Tom as they did. The orb impacted Tom and created a small burst of gold behind him. "You stupid beast." Tom muttered as he lowered his arm. "I'm gonna slaughter you."

-End-

So this chapter was important. I dropped hints, lots of hints. Hints about the future, a hint about Jane and a hint that Mark is a nerd.

I'll only tell you where to find the last one. It has to do with Mark liking the name of Lu-lu's bits. Take a wild guess (and by wild guess I mean google search) as to where that comes from (it kinda hast to deal with the theme song bit too).


	6. Chapter 6

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 6

-Begin-

Tom stood at the top of the stairs the momentary glow leaving his body. "Stupid beast." He started once the glow was fully gone. "I'm gonna slaughter you."

The inky thing turned to face the new arrival. "You took it!" It shouted. "I wanted it for myself but you took it. Now I'll never be able to properly exist!" Its voice was high pitched and whiny, not what you would expect from what looked like living oil.

Tom tapped his thumb over his heart, "Its right here bub, try and get it."

The inky beast lunged at Tom. Tom drew his large sword and held it up parallel to the front of his body. The white bits formed up around him as well all forming a Christmas tree pattern around Tom with the rectangular openings they had facing towards Tom's sword. The beast came close to Tom's body but a gold barrier formed in front of Tom causing the beast to go around the barrier and into the yard again. Tom laughed as he turned around, "You think that you can hit me with weak attacks like that?"

The beast had disappeared into the tidal flats, his consistency matching up with that of the foul black tidal mud. Tom closed his eyes. Mentally he scanned out, feeling out for thoughts. Quietly he thanked Lu-lu for her gift to him before he opened his eyes and jumped. Jumping up a full two stories into the air Tom formed his fingers into sets of two that started to glow gold. He then rapidly struck out with his hands at a specific point near the cellar doors. The mud erupted with small splats from miniscule impacts. The splats traveled around in a strange but obviously deliberate pattern as they wandered about the marsh. Mark managed to get to an angle where he could see Tom hovering in the sky for several seconds before gravity finally bothered him enough to make him start to come down. As he descended his rate of descent grew until he was a few inches from the ground, at that point he slowed rapidly to a stop. Just as he stopped the black beast again burst out of the mud, larger than before. Tom prepared to swing at the beast but he disappeared as it passed through the spot where Tom had been. Just as the last of the beast cleared that spot Tom re-appeared looking as if he had finished his swing.

"Whoah, it was like he didn't even _move_!" Mark shouted just before mud that the beast had picked up splattered him and Jane.

The beast poked its head out from the cellar slurry. "I saw him, he _didn't _move!" It shouted. "What the hell did you just teleport on me or something?"

Tom turned and switched his sword to his left hand. "In a manner of speaking, yes. But not quite the way you think I did." Toms' sword dropped to the top stair as Tom still stood on the edge of the cellar steps.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEY GUYYYYYYS!" A voice shouted from the basement stairs. Down the stairs a young girl bounced. Jane caught sight of her first, blood and various bits of flesh were smattered all over her clothes and tangled up in her long silver hair.

"Who the fuck are you, mass murderer?" Jane asked, fear in her voice.

"Oh me, I'm just cute lil' Selena!" Selena bounced her chest going up and down with her, two black swords with eyes held in her hands up against her cheek.

At the other end of the cellar Tom put his hand up against his face. "You didn't kill them all did you?" He asked frustrated.

Selena chuckled, her voice changing from a bubbly teenager to that of an older vixen. "Yeah, unfooooortunately they had it coming. They were some punk minority gang that had been bothering the neighborhood for a few months. I did the neighborhood a favor by killing them."

Tom sighed, "You know why I hate killing humans?" He asked.

"Because it leads to a paper trail, blah, blah, bluh." Selena said annoyed. "Look I got some plants to munch of the bodies and clean up the mess. They'll die in a few hours and turn into ash, and until then they'll block the door. Feel better."

Tom rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Not enough."

Selena lunged into the muck without any consideration for her own cleanliness. "Look I brought you back your swords. I'll bet you can even use them now." She tossed the two blades; eyes open to Tom point first.

Tom stood still as the blades both embedded themselves into the loose concrete steps. "And how do you know about my troubles?"

"Oh silly." Selena said her voice changing back to the high pitched teenager bubble. "Uncle Luca tells me all your problems if I ask correctly."

Head still only partially exposed the beast had a mouth that was pouting. "Stop ignoring me!" It shouted as it lunged at Selena.

Selena made a Baywatch run across the basement sludge towards Tom. The beast closed in rapidly. Tom appeared crouched on the muck between the two in an instant. He brought the two small black swords together with a violent clash and a bright reddish-pinkish aura appeared between him and the beast. The beast lunged straight into it suddenly and got caught on the aura. Tom brought his two swords to his side and began spinning them. He then tossed them one after another into the sky where several of the white bits fired beams that pierced the red cage with the thing inside.

Again suddenly at the storm cellar steps Tom picked up his large sword. A bit appeared above it and Tom shoved the sword into its underside. The blade stuck there. The bit flew off into the red cage and pierced the center. "Finally." Tom muttered as he grabbed his right arm above the elbow with his left hand. "I can do what I wanted to do."

The two red swords dropped from the sphere and returned to Tom. The beast's oily body spread out like an ink blob on a page of paper. "What the hell are you doing, this can only keep me for so long now!" It shouted as it tried to expand more.

"You underestimate my strength." Tom said coldly, "Everyone underestimates my strength; I try to work that way. Also, who said I wanted to keep you there for very long." With his two black swords gripped in his right hand tenuously an eye appeared on the largest flat surface of his fist. "Drain soul!" Tom shouted as yellow beams struck out at the beast. They pierced him just barely and held still for a moment. Then they moved back and forth stretching while still staying in place. After about forty seconds a red orb appeared from the body of the beast and traveled to the swords in Tom's hands. The gold beams faded and the eye symbol did too.

A bit brought Tom his case where he placed the two small swords. The other bit dropped his large sword into the proper place. Tom closed the case himself and tucked it under his shoulder as the bits dove into the cellar sludge.

"Is it dead?" Mark asked.

Tom nodded, "As dead as poor Lu-lu." Five bits surface carrying Lu-lu's body coated in the black sludge.

Mark made a quiet noise of embarrassment as he caught his breath. Jane pouted and slumped a bit as she stopped her struggle to escape from the mud. Selena bounced up and down in the muck, her chest still freely bouncing as well. "And why should this stuff bother you anymore. You lost your whole damn family and we all knew it was coming for her." The fact that blood could still be seen above her shoulder as well as bits of flesh in her hair made it all the more awkward a statement.

Tom pouted, "Do you want a ride home or do you want to walk looking like _that_." He asked surprising harshness in his voice.

Selena eyed herself up, he hand spreading mud all over her face. "I don't know. Walking home like this sounds kinda fun."

Tom sighed, "Oh damnit, before you get into my car you're all getting cleaned up."

Jane raised her hand and spoke, "I would love to but I can't because I'm stuck."

Tom quietly stared at Lu-Lu's body as the bits carried it out to the grounds. They put the body down on the mud. Then every bit went into the cellar to lift up Mark and Jane. Selena was left on her own stuck between the two. "Hey!" She shouted. "What about me?"

Tom huffed. "You screwed things up for me so I'll just leave you here."

"Oh damn it!" Selena shouted as she waded to the steps.

Tom had the bits gently let down Mark and Jane. "Now I doubt you two will fully clean off with what we have here. But I think Lu-lu had a way to do it with her bits." Tom motioned towards the white things buzzing around tom.

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

Tom sighed as he looked at Lu-lu's body. "When I used that technique with the gold and the eye on my palm on Lu-lu I got her technique. And all of her knowledge and just about everything. And…" Tom trailed. "Well let's just say I gained a whole lot of new knowledge.

"So you just didn't take control of her bits after she died?" Jane asked.

Tom shook his head, "No you need to be a psychic trained to do that. I cheated and just stole her training and strength."

"Ah." Jane said despite understanding very little. "Well how would you clean us up?"

"I would hit you with a very weak beam and blow off most of the dirt from you." Selena came up the steps soaked in muck and grime and blood. "And I can clean the blood off of you."

"Wouldn't you possibly, you know, like destroy our clothes, or actually, you know, _hurt _us?" Jane asked moderately concerned.

"With all of that grime on you I doubt it." Tom said with a nonchalant wave.

"Could we still test this first on something?" Mark asked very concerned, his eyes flickering to Lu-Lu's body.

"You wimp, you scared we're gonna see your dick and laugh!" Selena shouted at Mark. "If you want you can test it on me, like I give a shit if anybody sees me nude!"

Tom frowned but he sent six bits to rotate around Selena in two sets of three near her chest and knees. "Stand still." Tom said quietly. A pink field hit Selena all around, the bits began to rotate around and bits of mud and guts were vaporized. After one full rotation you could make out what was underneath the top layer of stuff, which mainly was blood and guts. "Hurt?" Tom asked.

"Naw, it kinda tickled." Selena replied.

Tom set the things to spin around Selena once again. Her top began to tear in places, Tom changed the beam focus immediately and stopped blasting the area above her breasts. After a second rotation most, although not by any stretch all, of the grime on Selena was blown off. "Your shirt was damaged, but the very top of it is clean at least." Tom said with a nod.

Selena plucked one of the holes by her shoulder blade. She tore right through her shirt without effort, the sleeve slid off. "I like it." She said with a grin. "Do the rest of me."

"No." Tom replied flatly.

"But I wanna-" Selena started.

"**No**." Tom said sternly.

"Party pooper." Selena said as she stuck out her tongue.

"Who's next?" Tom asked.

"Will you vaporize our clothes like that?" Mark asked still concerned.

"No, you're all so dirty I'll still be blasting off dirt." Tom said with a sigh.

Jane stepped up, "Just clean me off already." She said, "I feel disgusting."

With the precision of a surgeon Tom blasted the dirt and grime off of Jane for several minutes. He carefully blasted the grime off bit by bit taking careful time to blast her feet which were so covered in mud that it was hard to discern what her feet were. When he finished Jane rubbed her thigh with irritation. "What." Tom demanded.

"I still feel really gross." Jane angrily grumbled.

Selena rubbed shoulder to shoulder, her shirt now held up by her neck collar. "So do I, you're just gonna have to deal with it."

Tom quietly blasted Mark then looked at Lu-lu. "Let's take her back to the mission." Tom said mournfully.

"Shouldn't we report her death or something?" Mark asked.

Tom quietly eyed up Lu-lu's' body. "Well there's only so much you can do. She basically died of a sudden heart attack while being assaulted by an ink monster." Tom quietly thought to himself. When he was done Mark and Jane were gone around the side of the building and Selena was looking at Tom with a maniacal grin. "It was just a test." Tom said to Selena.

"Yeah, but I know why you're doing it." She said as her grin stayed spread wide.

Tom dispatched the bits to carry Lu-lu. "Since it's just the two of us I want to ask you a favor."

"What sweetie?" Selena said with genuine concern in her voice and her smile on her face still.

Mark and Jane were waiting out front of the condemned building when Tom and Selena emerged. Lu-Lu was within a strange prism created by the bits. The street lights were on about half a block each direction away from the corner everyone was at. Tom's car was still in relative darkness.

"Why the hell are you carrying Lu-lu like that?" Jane asked.

"She's filthy." Tom said.

"But won't people notice?" Jane asked.

"Why did you guys go to the front of the building?" Tom asked. Jane opened her mouth but couldn't say anything reasonable. Mark was rubbing his head in confusion. "I have gained psychic powers; I can influence people's heads enough so they won't notice."

"Oh." Jane and Mark said, despite not totally understanding.

"Um… Well…" Mark asked feeling awkward.

"What are we gonna do with the body?" Jane finished for him.

"Lu-lu came prepared." Tom said with a dismissive nod.

Everyone walked over to the vehicle in silence. Tom unlocked the car and disengaged the aura field he had set up. Quietly he opened the back of the car to find a large blue bag. In it were three sets of clothes made to fit Mark, Jane and Selena. The bag itself was designed as a body bag. Tom quietly looked at it for a moment as he pulled out the clothes. "Damn it Lu-lu, why did you know so well it was coming…" Tom sighed as the body was put in the bag and Tom zipped it shut. Everyone had gotten their spots in the vehicle. "We're going everyone. We'll hold the ceremony at the mission."

-End-

With reflection the latter half turns into one of my more –meh- chapters. But I like the first half and the details with Selena are necessary to reinforce her character in the future.

Which is to say when in your head you go "Does she mean what I think she means?" The answer is yes, even if that's not the meaning she's trying to get across her double entendre and innuendo all carry the sexual meaning too.

It felt a bit awkward to write, but I got over it.


	7. Chapter 7

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 7

Selena, queen of irresponsibility

Not only is that a fact, but it's the chapter title.

-Begin-

In a small open space between expansions to the mission Tom trained at a casket was laid out. Around it seven people, unknown to most of the people at the mission were gathered. Tom, Luca, and Jean were at the borders of that group. Seven students were there as well. A few other strange faces had shown up that Luca had identified as former students for those who had no idea. The only exception was one young woman who was quietly leaning up against Tom. She had been crying for much of the ceremony and Tom had silently held her against him. Luca had identified her as 'family'. Given Selena's comment about Tom's lack of family Jane found his choice of words odder still. She knew better than to speak up still.

The priest, a catholic who shared no ties other than ancient contractual ones with Tom finished his blessing. The ceremony was done in the way Lu-lu had requested in her will. Apparently Tom had managed to work out most of the legal issues in the week and a half after she died. There were some loose ends he planned to have Jean deal with but most of the estate was settled or in the process of being settled.

On a nearby roof Selena watched the ceremony with a mischievous grin, the black swords in her hands. Luca had constantly been eyeing her up with suspicion in his eyes. Mark had noted that every time he did so his aura made a miniature spike in frustration. Selena just grinned and quietly chuckled every time he looked. Tom had been glaring at Luca every few times he had glared at Selena as well. This created a confusing cycle of glaring between the three of them. Mark sensed odd amounts of hostility between the three of them. Weren't funerals supposed to bring people together? He continually wondered.

Once the ceremony finished and the priest left the strange masters who the students didn't know all stepped a little closer to the coffin in near perfect unison and relative silence. At this point Tom looked up and shouted, "Selena!" Selena got up and stretched herself. Tom nodded at Luca, "You two have to make the tree, we're all human here."

Selena leaped down from the roof to the center of the square. Her clothes had changed from when they had all first met. Now she wore a strange white-ish silver robe that only had wide shoulder straps to cover her upper body. The straps were only minimal cover for her breasts the sides of which could clearly be seen by any observer. Her clothing was made of ridiculous amounts of fabric for what little it covered, the fabric folded and creased all over. Selena had let down her silver hair which came down to her thighs. Her canines also seemed larger than they had been in the city, sticking out of her mouth now even when it was closed. "Did I ever mention I like your swords?" Selena asked as she had them open.

Tom sighed, "Yes, just do it I have something I want to say before they all leave."

In the center of this circle around the casket Luca and Selena's aura's flared wildly. As they stood still a tree sprouted from behind them engulfing the casket. It was a short but wide tree, with proportions not unlike a bonsai tree. Selena looked at the tree and sighed, "If only I wasn't restrained." She muttered, "Like your stubble of a tree?" She asked.

Tom nodded, "It'll preserve her and let her like you said right."

"Oh heck yea. Someone could cut this down in two centuries and her body will be inside just like it was today. Hell better even, it'll fix up some of her health problems if you let her keep long enough." She tossed Tom his black swords.

Tom caught the blades and then asked, "Catch that everyone." The circle of unknown spirit masters nodded. Tom eyed up his students and said, "You guys should go inside for now, take the day off."

Inside the temple the students all grouped up unsure what to do. Most offered condolences for Mark and Jane, they had been there when it had happened. The two really weren't sure of exactly what to do. They hadn't known Lu-lu that well and yet before she died she had sent them each a thought. Unlike the rest of the students they knew what had happened and they knew who had really killed Lu-lu.

Suddenly Selena clapped Jane and Mark on the shoulders violently. "Why so glum you two, you barely knew the human broad?"

Jane shrugged, "She just left me thinking peculiar things." She replied with a shrug and a faint grin.

"What are you saying?" Mark asked Selena as he retreated from her. "Why are you so nonchalant?"

Selena sighed, "You are such a little twit." She sighed.

"I am eighteen you know!" Mark shouted.

"I'm older than you and her combined and then multiplied by ten." Selena said with a shrug. "Hell if my math is right multiplied by a hundred." Selena stretched up and rubbed her chin, "Damn I am an old bitch. I supposed it had to do with that demonic water I drank as a youth."

"What are you going on about?" Mark shouted in confusion. "There's so much that has been going on… I have no idea!"

"Fuck right ya don't!" Selena shouted at Mark ridiculously loudly. She then tapped her chin in thought. "You guys wanna go drinkin' whilst I explain it to ya?"

Jane put her arm around Selena's shoulder. "Now you're speaking my language!" She chuckled.

Mark was somewhat shocked by all of this, "We're both underage though."

"Ahhhh who the fuck cares?" Selena asked. "Tom barely drinks it anyways; I'll just leave some change for what we drink."

Mark made an attempt to protest but Ribbons shot out from Jane's fingers. "We're drinking your coming with us." She said as she tied him up and lifted him off the ground.

"I like your style." Selena complimented Jane as she walked towards the head of the atrium and the large open area that was one story off of the ground.

Up a flight of narrow and steep stone stairs Jane and Mark came to a room they hadn't seen before. It was fully furnished like an apartment. Save that there were old looking works of art and weapons on the walls. There was a small kitchen, a door that opened to a moderately sized bedroom next to that, a small living space spread down the center and a bar to the far right that brushed up against the back right corner. To their left was a French door that led out to the ledge that overlooked the atrium. There were all sorts of little touches scattered about that gave the room the look of something heavily lived in. "Who gets this room?" Selena asked as she looked around. The small bed chamber was as large as her own room and it barely took up one sixth of the space.

"Tom, he is the missions master after all." Selena said as she walked back to the bar. "Now let's see what stuff is up here." She cracked her fingers as she leant over the counter. "Oooh some good stuff, some old wine vintages… Damn they don't make _that _anymore. Man, you can only get this in demon world. Its crap though, don't want to give it to the alcohol virgin. Now that is some nice demon world liquor there." Selena finished as she pulled out about half a dozen bottles. She eyed up her choices and walked over to the fridge. "Not much beer here… Must keep most of it in the basement. Ah whatever there's enough for us here. Don't' want to get piss drunk by two PM." Selena counted up her bottles. "Well that vintage is still on the market…" She muttered, "That stuff is also pretty common, but the other four are _damn _hard to find. I'll give him five out of the kindness of my heart." Selena walked over to a barstool and sat down patting a seat next to her. "C'mon sit down, let's drink some booze. I'll finish off what you guys can't." Jane and Mark sat down as Selena got behind the bar. She set six shot glasses in front of Jane and five in front of Mark. "You all have to finish what's in front of you here before you can stop drinking." Selena said as she poured herself a glass proper. "Other than that you can request any of the six until the bottle runs out."

Jane lifted up the cup on her left and sniffed it, "Smells good enough." She said before downing it.

Mark looked at the glasses, "Are you sure this is any good for us."

"Nope." Selena said non-chalantly as she poured another glass for herself from another bottle. "You still have to drink it before I consider talking."

Jane moved on to her second sniffing it and grimacing. She drank it regardless but stuck her tongue out in disgust afterwards. "What's this crap?" She asked rhetorically.

"Demon world mid class booze." Selena sighed, "Demons don't make many good alcoholic drinks most things that come from there that taste decent are imitations of human drinks. Didn't give it to the alcohol virgin because he wouldn't be able to stomach it."

Jane looked at her glass and tipped it over. "Must be why the ink thing we fought was so violent. If that's mid-tier booze I'd hate to have some rot-gut shit."

Selena chuckled as she poured her third cup. "I'm not evil enough to do that. The only other demon world stuff is one of our few decent drinks. You'll probably like it."

Mark quietly downed his drinks while the ladies discussed their alcoholic preferences. By the time he was done Jane had drunk about three times the alcohol that had originally been put down. Selena had drunk the bottle of bad demon booze wholly. The two of them had also downed another whole bottle of the wine that Selena had brought out, with Selena drinking by far the most. Jane was beginning to slow her drinking and she was getting more than a little drunk. Selena had been wearing a goofy smile from her fourth glass in twenty minutes. Her pouring was getting worse and worse spilling onto the countertop and her clothes about equally.

Mark let himself get distracted by the thinning of the masses of fabric for just a moment. He then remembered that Selena seemed to be crazy and decided to ignore that, nothing good was showing anyways. "So who were all those guys at the funeral?"

"Other than thu' students?" Selena asked. "Some master of a dayum secret technique. Tom, Luca and Jean all are similar masters." Selena leaned on her side as she spilled a bottle over her clothes, the countertop and into her cup. "They never will tell me the secret of how to do the technique." She muttered frustrated. "Luca says that I would be dangerous with the technique in hand. I think he's just jealous that I'm stronger than him by far."

Mark raised an eyebrow, "You're stronger than him."

Selena breathed in deep, her chest swelling almost like a cartoon character, and breathed out. "It's complicated." She answered.

"It's complicated?" Mark asked.

"Well normally I would be stronger than everyone here but Luca, and that's iffy I might add." Selena made a point with her finger while her lips magically shrank. "But in human world I have to keep my power down so I don't kill things by sneezing."

"Kill with sneezing?" Mark said as he gave Selena an absurd look.

"Did I say kill with sneezing?" Selena asked. "I meant kill with shitting. Now I know what you're thinking!" Selena exclaimed. "That's bullshit, pun intended. I've got a lovely little plant that my crappy plant mastery lets me submerge below my skin buuuuuuut." Selena closed her eyes and made a painful sounding grunt. Suddenly several red vines appeared from below her skin, ripping through it in the process. "Oh GOD that hurts!" Selena shouted, "That's why I don't do it sober."

Mark looked at the vines and then at Selena who was chugging another bottle wholesale. "Do you enjoy doing these painful and embarrassing things to yourself?"

"I enjoy making people squirm. It gives me an enjoyable rise." Selena had the vines drop below her skin leaving grotesque looking scars over where her heart is. "That's the fun part about Tom. When he wants to he can ignore _everything _for his focus. I like trying to make him squirm when he's serious. All he does is sigh and get annoyed at the impracticality of the things that I do." Selena put her head down on the counter as she raised her arms in an uncomfortable manner to pour another glass for herself.

Mark pouted, he was confused. "So you do all of these things just to make people feel uncomfortable."

Selena sighed as she tried to drink without moving her head and failed. "Well there may be a dominance and embarrassment thing going on, but yea that's the surface reason."

Mark leaned forwards, "So do you want to tell us anything about yourself?" He asked finally seeing some of the inside of Selena's mind.

"What's there to say, I'm a demon a little more than 4,000 years old who was exposed to a spring of youth and, I'd assume, immortality. I'm about average in strength for my age, but there aren't many demons my age that look like I do. I married Luca a millennium ago. I'm also a bastard child of a wolf demon and fox demon. Because of it I can't do much with the special techniques of my various species. I can't transform into a wolf and get a short burst of near immortality when that happens. My control of plants is mediocre at best; even at my full power I couldn't remove this annoying thing from my chest." Selena's head had been rolling around on the bar while she had been rambling. Now it picked up, "But hey WHO CARES! I'm 4,000 and will probably live to 500 or 600,000! Why should I give a shit if I only have some technical issues?"

Mark leaned back, Selena's breath was thick with alcohol and her mouth was rife with spittle. Mark wanted to avoid both as much as possible. He kinda felt that what Selena said made sense. She may have felt a little underwhelmed by herself so she drew attention to herself. Mark was going begin a further introspection when his aura sense picked something up. There was a human in distress outside the compound. If Mark was feeling it right it was most likely the woman who was sobbing at Toms side the entirety of the funeral. "Someone's in trouble." Mark said as he hopped off his barstool and it clattered to the ground. Mark ran to the top of the stairs and then looked back to the bar. Selena and Jane were still there drinking. "You guys come on; someone's being attacked by demons!" Mark shouted.

Selena swatted at Jane face leaving a few red lines on Jane's cheek. "You're right, it's Jane." She said.

Jane rubbed her face for a moment in surprise. Then she became furious, she shouted something but it was so obscured by anger, screeching and drunkenness that it was indiscernible. It was probably a bunch of swears. Several ribbons shot out of her left hand and hit Selena, piercing her skin just a little bit.

Mark sighed and grabbed the two drunkards by their waists and carried them outside.

In a wooded area by the side of the compound the woman who had been sobbing at Tom's side was alone finally letting her eyes dry off. "I knew it was coming…" She sighed. "Sometimes I hate having my gift. Sometimes I wish all I could do was beat people up."

"You really will want that ability soon." A voice came from the woods.

"Who are you?" The woman asked as her muscles tensed up.

"Somebody adventurous." The voice came back. "Somebody hungry too."

Out from the woods a strange figure leapt. The woman's fist met that thing at the top of the skull as it leapt. Unfortunately the momentum the thing had caused her to recoil. She hit the building with her back. Painfully the woman gripped her hand looking at several out of place fingers. Her fingers were falling in ways fingers shouldn't. They were bleeding in most places where they bended, and they were bended at places they normally wouldn't. While she grabbed her palm and wrist in pain to try and cut the blood flow she looked at her attacker. It was a vaguely humanoid figure with rocks for a body. It lay face down with its head facing towards the woman. As it lay there the woman realized that the off colored places on the things skull was the blood from her hand and the brains from its own skull showing through.

A much more humanoid figure walked out from behind a tree. "Poor Rocky." He said with a male voice. "He just wanted to have intercourse with you. Why'd you have to go and bash his skull in? I was planning to use it to break down the doors." The figure was a very, very lanky humanoid figure. It had red fur and a blade growing out of its arm cutting through a white sleeve from a loose white shirt the figure was wearing. "Now I'll have to use you as a hostage instead."

The woman laughed. "I highly doubt that will happen." She said with a knowing grin.

"Why do you think that?" The red figure asked.

"Because I can see your future, you'll die within the hour." She scanned around the forest, "Most of your comrades look to die within the hour as well."

The figure picked the woman up by her chin. "Well something is wrong with that statement, you just became my hostage."

"Put you down you lechers!" A male voice came from around the corner.

Galloping around the corner with two drunken females under his arms, both carrying at least one bottle, came Mark. He launched Selena and Jane at the red figure, a spear came out from the trees and struck Selena in the leg spinning her around and into Jane, the pair landed in a bunch of dry pine needles. Selena had a spear sticking out of her leg. "Good throw Johnny." The red figure shouted to someone in the woods.

About eighteen human looking figures stepped out of the woods, all of them having some oddity in their appearance that identified them as not human. One with scaly looking skin walked up to Selena to pick his spear out of her leg. As he leant over to do that Selena grabbed his face and sunk her claws into it. She downed one bottle while still pressing his face and then downed another. She reached for Jane's bottle but she pulled it away from Selena. "You like that one huh?" Selena said with a shrug. "Well onto you bub." She said to the demon whose face Selena's nails were crushing. Selena pulled the spear out of her leg. "Time for me to clobber you with your own weapon." Selena said getting up. Unfortunately the blood loss caught up to Selena, along with the masses of alcohol. Right after she got up she fell over.

"Now your mine!" One other demon shouted as he leapt at Selena with a sword.

Before his sword could land he was hit by multiple ribbons. Fifteen in total. Jane rubbed her head with her un-ribboned hand. "Oh god, that hurt." She said as she gripped her stomach.

Mark stared at Jane. "You've got your ribbons coming out of your shoes." He said in shock.

Jane looked at her feet, indeed five ribbons had burst out of each shoe. "Well look at that." Jane muttered. She got up about as stable on her feet as Selena. "You all suck." She muttered as she rubbed her side, "I'm gonna take you all out."

"NOT so fast." The red figure shouted. "In case you didn't notice I've got a human hostage." The figure turned to face Jane. "You may have gotten away with a few injuries on my crew so far but if you care about her you'll stop."

Jane looked at the bottle in her off hand. She took a drink, "You know how inebriated I am?" She asked the red figure.

"Obviously too inebriated." Another voice responded plucking the bottle out of Jane's hand. Tom was the one who did it. He was standing over her with a disapproving look on his face. Behind and around him stood the other strange visitors. "Selena?" Tom asked.

Luca suddenly jumped over to her, "Selena, what the hell happened to you? You're bleeding everywhere!"

"A drunken bar fight with Jane, then Mark threw us out and we got into a drunken brawl with these guys." Selena started to get up but Luca pushed her down.

"I'm healing you now, stay still or I'll make it even more painful." In a threat he gripped Selena's leg tightly, she gave him an irritated look.

Tom stepped forwards bottle still in hand. "So you guys are demons, why on earth did you show up now?"

The red figure stepped forwards with an arrogant stride. "We knew your reputation so we've been gathering numbers to take you on. When we saw all of you here I decided to be opportunistic and kill all of you at once."

Tom eyed up the fifteen or so demons, "You people?"

"Yes for we are-"

Tom suddenly had his fingers in the face of the red figure, "I don't care about your names, you'll all die anyways."

-End-

A kinda Meh chapter in my opinion, the bits that aren't clearly forced at the beginning and end are the best. But chapters like these reinforce little details about characters and their powers. Thus when you read this you will be forced to pay attention so in the future when I forget what I've written and screw up you can send me threatening e-mails that say if I don't fix my error you will kill me.

I will ignore those e-mails and continue on with my life.


	8. Chapter 8

Yu-Yu Hakusho Human born demon: Chapter 8

-Begin-

The red figure stepped forwards with an arrogant stride. "We knew your reputation so we've been gathering numbers to take you on. When we saw all of you here I decided to be opportunistic and kill all of you at once."

Tom eyed up the fifteen or so demons, "You people?"

"Yes for we are-"

Tom suddenly had his fingers in the face of the red figure, "I don't care about your names, you'll all die anyways."

"Such harsh words for someone who has to deal with a hostage." The red figure taunted.

Tom looked back at his companions. "Gentlemen?" He asked. A few coughs came from the crowd. "And ladies."

Two people stepped forwards, one an older man wearing a long cloak with a grey hair and a grey beard. The other was a young man in his early twenties, he had red spiky hair and an energetic, if angry, look in his eyes. The two looked at one another and the older one deferred to the younger saying, "You first."

The younger nodded, "I don't think we need to help you. If you really inherited Ludmillas abilities and strength you should be able to handle them just fine."

Tom gave the younger figure a puzzled look. "Cheren?" He asked.

"It will be a test to see if you are truly the one deserving of her abilities."

Tom stepped back from the red figure watching the smirk grow on that figures face. "Then I ask if you will keep my cousin safe, and my students."

Cheren stepped forwards, "I think not." He said. He was then smacked on the back of his head.

The older man disapprovingly glowered. "There are things like going too far." He boomed. "That would be it." The older man gave Tom and approving nod, "You will deal with the threat, we will deal with the victims if need be."

Tom nodded. "You won't take the life of your hostage." He said to the red figure.

The red figure looked obviously confused and disappointed. "How will they stop me?" He shouted as he drew the blade up closer to his hostage.

Tom's eyes turned into a harsh glare, "They won't have to they'll just fix up her hand. I'll kill you before you can do any more harm to her."

"You really think you can kill me like th-" His voice was cut off as a beam of aura sliced his head from cheek to cheek.

Tom glared as he drew his two black swords. "You are, for all intents and purposes, already dead."

Mark cut in, "HO-KU-TO!" Tom glared at Mark; he stepped back and said, "I'll shut up now."

Watching Tom's distraction the red figure moved in to make the cut. The older man karate chopped the red figures arm off. The cut was by no means clean and the woman that the red figure had taken hostage had her back and side covered in blood and bits of shoulder flesh. Tom turned to face the older man. "Thanks."

The older man nodded, "If you were to fight all of them at least you could do it with minimal distractions."

Tom turned to face Jean, buried in the back of the crowd, "I forgot something in my office. A few things actually. Could you go get them?"

Jean looked somewhat confused, "What things exactly?" He asked.

"You'll know what when you see them." Tom replied, "There are… four things total, they're all pairs with things I have on me or things you're going to get." Jean nodded and ran off. Tom turned around and saw the demon with an arm and face missing writhing in pain in front of him. He shoved the red demon down, "That's what you get when you take my sister hostage, I'll come back later for more." Tom faced the mob; they still seemed intent on jumping him, just not very intent on doing it this instant. "You're all still here." Tom stated, "So where's the real boss?" He asked looking around. One aura buried in the woods a fair bit stood out to Tom. "Found you." He quietly muttered as he put his swords into his right hand.

Tom closed his eyes and took one deep breath. The demons spent a few seconds just looking at him. From far back a burst of aura could be sensed by most of the people still conscious and then a shout happened. "Jump him you idiots." The voice was undoubtedly female and debatably feline too.

About half of the demons decided to follow the advice of the advisor in the rear, taking a rapid leap at Tom. Tom raised a pair of fingers at one and said only, "Bang." Purple aura beams rained down from the sky at the demons while one unlucky demon was split in half by a golden slice. Tom raised his left arm his eyes open now, an eye formed on them. "Drain soul." He said calmly. Small gold beams struck each demon producing a small soul from each of them in a few short seconds. The souls landed in Toms black swords. Tom moved them back into both hands with a reverse grip. "Thanks for the power boost." He said calmly. Again he closed his eyes.

"He's doing it again; stop screwing this up you nitwits!" The female voice hissed. This time her order was just too late. As the demons responded, by preparing their bodies to leap Tom quickly appeared in front of three at a time and cut them all down with his two short swords. It took him a few seconds to go through the six still standing demons but they all fell down.

Tom stood at the very edge of the woods. "Well I dealt with all but two of them, but it seems all of your fighters are dead or otherwise incapacitated. Why don't you come out so I can see you myself?"

"Maybe I don't want to!" The voice shouted with a pitch of worry in it.

Tom frowned and made a slice in the air with two of his fingers. Several trees split in half a ways down into the forest. The band that was cut narrowed as it went further back into the trees until a light 'thump' against something fleshy could be heard. "Ow!" The female wailed. "That better not have cut my fur." About two hundred feet away, head exposed over a large tree stump was a brown furry/hairy thing. Said hairy thing slumped below the stump for an instant and then jumped on top of it. Now it was a large furry/hairy thing. At two hundred feet definition was something hard to come by. "I am the mighty Pumyra! Beware my mystical and strange powers!"

At the other end of the dent in the trees Tom simply swung his fingers in complicated motions, small golden shimmers in the air leaving them as he did.

Whether by strange and mystical powers or by jumping really high Pumyra evaded her attacker. She came down almost immediately in front of Toms face posed on the tips of her feat. The brown furry/hairy mass now was much furrier and less hairy. She had the remains of a long mane of chestnut brown hair behind her head. It was cut in a straight line that wasn't quite even with her body. Tom obviously got her hair, or fur. Her body was undoubtedly female, with a few strange quirks. It had brown stripes that went to her sides and a reddish hue on places like her chest area. She had strange triangle shaped ears that were brown, and a tail that alternated between the red and brown colors of her fur.

"You're a catgirl, demon thing?" Tom asked. "Do those exist?"

"Yes in fact we do," She said getting up on tall tree trunk to lecture, "we are few in number but-" She suddenly Yowled and leaped up high again as Tom suddenly grabbed her tail.

Mark, still standing by and watching caught something for a moment, it seemed weird but for a second or two Tom was still in front of Pumyra listening to her while at the same time behind her and about to grab her tail. "What the hell…" Mark trailed.

Still healing his mate Luca took notice of Marks reaction and asked, "How much alcohol did you put in him?"

Selena was lying on the ground with her eyes closed a relaxed hand behind her head, "Enough for him to decide to throw the two of us." Luca bared his fangs a slight bit in mild irritation and grasped a little tighter on Selena's leg. Selena half opened an eye lazily. "Stop trying to hurt me, I barely notice." She mumbled. She turned her head to one side to deal with the pressure that, despite her exterior, wasn't exactly pleasant. There she spied Pumyra, suddenly she jumped up, the various poke holes that Jane had made in her earlier and her leg spouting a bit of blood as she did, "Holyshititsyou!" She shouted as fast as she could. She then grabbed her everything and continued, "Oh fuck that hurt." As she lay back down in pain.

Pumyra cast an instant of a nervous glance at Selena but instead turned towards Tom. She bowed over to speak to him but Tom clobbered her in the face. "Why the hell did you try to raid the mission?" He asked once she hit the ground.

"You bwoke my nobe!" Pumyra said grabbing her nose.

Tom got up on the large stump and looked down at Pumyra. "Hey, at least you still have you arm. I can break that off to." His voice didn't have an ounce of sympathy in it. "Why were you stupid enough to raid the mission?"

"We wuh pud ub!" Pumyra said as she crawled her back up to another stump.

"Ah, who was the boss?"

"I'd neber tell!" Pumyra said as long claws came out of her fingers.

Jean suddenly re-appeared. "Finally found them all. You really need to organize where you put your sheathes." He said holding Tom's large sword, sheathed, and the sheathes to his two smaller swords in a bundle in his hands. "Catch." He said as he prepared to toss all of the various items in Tom's direction.

Cheren grabbed Jean's arm. "We aren't giving him any assistance." He said sternly.

"Well I really couldn't care about you." Jean said back, "Technically he is the master of this mission and I can aid him on those grounds alone. Besides it's not like giving him this sword will change the outcome of the battle."

A strange white lightning pattern flashed in front of Cheren for a moment. "I'm saying you aren't giving him the swords and that's that."

Jean lowered his eyebrows at Cheren. "And I'm saying I am. And _that's _that."

"You want to have to go through IL duce?" Cheren asked.

"Do you want Tom to run you through?" Jean asked.

"He'd have to go through IL duce." Cheren said confidently.

"We're speaking English." Tom replied from behind Cheren. "He prefers the English 'the duke'."

The old man nodded behind Tom, "I am a fan of John Wayne."

"I thought he was to get no help from us!" Cheren shouted.

The old man sighed, "You're really letting the revenge thing get to your head. Hey Pumyra?" He asked.

"Yeth?" She replied still holding her nose.

"You can either leave or fight me now." The old man stated. "I would advise you just leave."

Pumyra looked at the angry man with great power and decided to run away. "Mahk my worbs I'll beh bak sumdey and I'll beh stronguh!" Pumyra let out through her broken nose.

Cheren shouted, "You're just letting him get away and defending _his _cousin! What about Ludmilla!"

Tom paused as he donned his swords and sheathes, "Lu-lu knew this was coming. I didn't want her to go but she wanted to."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Cheren shouted.

"I had hoped so, but obviously it didn't. I was prepared for that too." Tom drew his black sword and put it in his left hand and his long sword in his right. "I guess we'll just have to fight now won't we."

Cheren closed his hand into a fist. "I suppose we will."

The instant Cheren finished speaking Tom was in his face landing a punch around his sword handle. As Cheren recoiled Tom said, "If that's how you react to a punch this fight will be over quick."

Cheren wiped off his bloody nose. "That would be true if I were the one fighting you." A yellow aura beam struck at Tom, who dodged into the stumps. "But I don't fight with my opponents." A large white machine descended from the sky in front of Cheren. It had human hands with rounded wrists and short arms. There were two large triangular objects attached to each arm that expanded the further away from the hands they were. The machine had stubby legs that looked better for four legged transport than normal human transport. Its head had a slit in the middle where a single pink 'eye' sat in the center. Behind the head was a ridiculous looking cone of a sort, it rose to three times the height of the head. "Go, get him, Batara!"

Mark piped up on the sidelines "With the head thing that looks more like the Quavarze." Mark received dagger glares from everybody around. "I'll stay quiet." He said as he stepped to the rear. One of the masters stepped back with him and leaned over to speak with him.

The white machine jumped at Tom who blocked the white spiky triangle with his big sword. Neither seemed to have edge in brute strength. The Batara raised its left arm and pointed the narrow end at Tom. Another yellow beam shot out of its triangle. Tom slid to the side at the cost of letting his grip weaken. The Batara's arm threatened to brush against Tom, who disappeared and re-appeared a few feet away from the Batara. When he re-appeared his blades were all sheathed and his fingers were split into pairs of two. He spun his arms and golden waves went flying at the Batara. The lines were all very thin and struck into the armor of the Batara cutting away at the top layer of it. "Batara, use your main cannon!" Cheren shouted from the edge of the group.

The Batara's spun over to a horizontal orientation. Its massive cone pointed at Tom. A small nozzle at the end of it began to glow purple. "See!" Mark shouted, "It is the Quavarze!" People tried to glare but one of the masters waved the glares aside.

Tom jumped at the nozzle with his hands spread wide, he clapped them together right in front of the nozzle as the purple beam fired out. They split at his hands making several dents in the hillside behind him. As the beam fired several of Lu-lu's bits flew over the Batara's back. They struck at the cone and everything they could find, buzzing around the Batara like bees. Unfortunately Tom's power was now split and he couldn't keep using his hands as an aggressive defense. Purple beam struck Tom in the upper chest deflecting off into the sky. Tom bounced back in recoil into a crater in the hillside making a not so gentle thump. The Batara's beam hit into the hillside below Tom and to his left, but the beam faded quickly as the bits tore the Batara's back apart. Obviously bruised and sore Tom got up an irritated look on his face. He drew his large sword and let it violently take a small chunk out of the hillside. Tom squatted as he pointed his sword almost straight in front of him. He pulled it back to his shoulder with both hands on the handle. He leapt forwards shouting at the top of his lungs, his sword glowing gold.

The Batara got back on its rear legs and raised the two triangle barrels to fire. Tom was too quick for Cheren to get psychic lock on Tom. The Batara fired in self defense but the beam went behind Tom. With a quick golden burst right before impact Tom's sword sunk into the Batara's chest. The blade stuck out the back. The Batara is still raised both its arms to fire on Tom as he stood right up against the Batara's chest. Tom quickly threw his two black swords out to his right and left, bits grabbed onto them and then flew into the triangle guns. Tom let out a sigh of relief as the Batara finally stopped moving. He clamored over the broken and battered Batara and looked at Cheren. Cheren was on his one knee grabbing his chest in pain.

"You wanna go to a fist fight?" Tom asked.

"No, let's go to the last step." Cheren angrily relented in pain. He raised up his right arm and an eye appeared on his closed fist.

Tom did the same; two strong gold beams collided halfway between the two. Cheren's beam was larger than Toms. Cheren shouted as he fired his, but the clash point stayed in the middle. Tom quietly and stoically looked down, literally, at Cheren, "You know how it's going to end." Tom said as he suddenly made headway. "I don't, you can let it end however you want." Tom made more headway. "Just know if you lose, she's willing to meet up with you in here." Tom put his thumb over his chest. That seemed to be the end of things, Tom's beam connected with a smiling Cheren. For a moment the beam struck his front side and then a gold orb came out rapidly flying into Tom's chest. Once it impacted Tom turned around at looked at the Batara, Lu-Lu's bits flew down onto the Batara and many of them docked into holes in its back. A few didn't although they hovered over holes that Tom had made. Tom pushed his large blade back and a bit grabbed it. The Batara hovered off the ground and flew to somewhere within the complex.

Tom turned around and asked, "Luca, Selena, can you add onto the tree fairly soon." He said looking at Cheren's body.

Luca sighed as he eyed up his wife. "I'll need your swords but I can do it."

Tom nodded, "Yeah, I think I'm just gonna lie down before I deal with this." He looked at the other masters, "If you want to stay for another ceremony you can, but at least just know what I told you before is true." He pointed at Cheren, "He'll be my proof."

-End-

A/N – I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. This is the beginning of me being an overt mecha nerd. With Lu-lu I was sneaky in calling her weapons bits (Something my 4 readers who also know about UC/AW Gundam would have caught). But here I was a little more obvious, Cheren mind controls a small autonomous mecha named after a mobile suit from Crossbone Gundam. It also has weapons like the machine Mark was talking about before. And who was talking to Mark, well let's say he's just _another _way for me to nerd out and lose all of you. And go Meta as fuck. Also Mark is my first and main way to nerd out; this means he will become more badass in the future.


End file.
